Lost and Found

Sam sat down with Lucas and Tony, clutching the mini thermometer he grabbed from his parents’ kitchen counter earlier that morning. He wanted to test for himself if the temperature and weather within a cave remained constant, like his 8th grade teacher claimed. Holding the device now in his palm, it served more as a worry stone as he tried to find a way to help his friends remain calm. After all, they were there because he asked them to come along. He looked down at the thermometer, making sure it was still at 44 degrees. It was. A cold tear traced the curve of his cheekbone, dove off and landed on his left wrist. It was dark, and the silence was thick, only pierced now and again by a drip from above, reminding them water was all around. Lucas started to panic. “What if… what if..! What if we never get out, ever! What if we die here!?” His voice was shaking and high pitched. Sam kept thinking back to 2018 when twelve kids in Thailand and their coach became trapped in a cave for nearly two weeks due to early monsoon rains causing flooding, blocking their exit. And how their coach would lead them through meditation on their breath to keep them calm. He was only 7 years old when he and his family were glued to the news, witnessing the incredible recovery efforts. Pressing the thermometer deep into his palm, he gave it a shot. “Turn off your headlamps, close your eyes. Feel breath enter the body, leave the body. Fear! It’s not real! It’s, it’s something the mind creates! Don’t believe your mind — only believe the breath!” The boys gathered closer, shoulders and knees now touching, as they desperately clung to their friend’s instructions. 

Like the boys in Thailand, Sam thought it’d be a fun excursion for his birthday. Last week’s geology lesson mentioned Oregon Cave National Monument and its many unique features dwelling inside. Even though they had grown up in close proximity to this place, Sam’s curiosity was piqued as a 13 year old boy’s might be. Adding the element of being off limits after hours, the cave became a necessary birthday adventure. This major tourist attraction was only a few miles away from town on their bikes, and if they left at dawn, the chances were good they’d be able to enter without a ranger at the gate. And their plan worked. 

Close to an hour had passed since they stood at the Grand Column formation. And it was there that Sam’s pace had slowed to a halt as he unsteadily confessed his confusion. “Uh, guys? I don’t know where we are.” Chaos broke out from the two others in echoing screams and shouts which came tumbling back toward them, mockingly. The frozen time of the place had shattered. The group silently accepted their shared confusion, and instinctually stooped and crouched around various rock shapes to reach a platform-like rock about 10 feet away. It was their safe harbor for now.

After a few minutes of focusing on their breathing, Lucas, Sam and Tony had synced up their inhales and exhales. It seemed more calming that way, to be one scared and lost breathing body instead of three terrified friends lost in the depths of a cave. Tony clicked on his headlamp, then Sam, then Lucas. And in near-unison they lifted their chins, exploring their surrounds with shafts of light illuminating countless cave formations within an arm’s length and beyond the reaches of their LEDs.

Sam beamed his light down toward the thermometer. Still 44 degrees. He rubbed the thermometer like a talisman, silently registering that it had been nearly three hours since they stood at that entrance in the pastel light of dawn. He had taken note of just how beautiful the dawn was, and it’s contrast with the cave’s cool, dark air entreating them inward. 

The peaceful moments of the morning, now long gone, collided with his present terror. This clashing energy filled him and rose from deep within, and Sam was suddenly on his feet, pronouncing with all of his might, “the weather doesn’t change in caves! It’s a constant! We have to remember that! There is no wind, no rain or sun, the temperature is always the same! We can learn from the cave! There is calmness all around us and we too can remain calm — like the cave!” Headlamps cast sharp shafts of light toward him. The space slowly swelled with silence again, all but sounds of dripping water which seemed to applaud Sam’s epiphany. He squeezed the thermometer tightly in his left hand.

It was true. One could choose fear and chaos or to focus calmly. But as he lowered to sit down again, the cadence of Sam’s heaving breath was fast and shallow in the wake of his revelation. It seemed a beat of a drum, inadvertently causing a crest of unsettledness that moved through the circle of boys as weather might upon a dark ocean, very swiftly. In the swell, they buoyed each other out of instinct, and the storm passed back into the silence from which it came. Their attention as a whole seemed now both widened and softened.

Headlamps angling upward, around and down, the boys grew more curious of their surroundings and bravely left the rock shelf to explore their confines. “Hey those are soda straws!” “Yeah! And that’s a pool spar!” And like that, the boys were spewing knowledge of all things speleothem. That’s the word that excitedly emerged from Tony’s mouth. “Speleothem! These are speleothems!” Reaching upward there for stalactites, downward toward stalagmites, their newfound excitement transported them into an alternate universe, one that lay parallel to the dread-laden one just minutes before. Tony’s hand studied a delicate and squiggly formation above as Sam’s and Lucas’s light joined in, and pronounced, “that’s Medusa’s hair!” Suddenly, three hands were upon the Grecian locks of the marbleized maiden, slowly studying its textures.

They eventually migrated back to their rock shelf. “Hey, if we get back to that Grand Column, maybe they will find us on a tour today!” Tony beamed his idea brightly. They sat down to think it out as Lucas broke out a half eaten oatmeal cookie. Passing it around they each enjoyed a bite, saving the biggest piece for Sam. “Happy Birthday, Sam!” Tony exclaimed. And Lucas chiming in, “Yeah, Sam! If we ever get outta here, maybe you’ll have another!” A pallor fell on the group, all headlamps directed toward the well-wisher, then toward each’s lap. 

Since it was Tony’s idea, he was voted to lead the charge on getting back to the Grand Column. He took up the challenge upon two conditions; at each juncture, they pause to scream for a minute straight. Agreed. And to determine which way they turn, they would need an object to flip. Lucas took a coin out from his pocket. “I brought this with me today for good luck.” They agreed if it landed on heads they would turn right, tails, turn left. In a single line, they took turns jumping down from the safety and confines of their rock shelf, returning the way from which they came. And juncture after juncture, with hands muffling ears, they screamed their heads off for one minute straight. They took turns tossing the nickel. Sam memorized each turn Fate had them take, as they took it. Left on the first juncture, and the second one. Right on the third, left on the fifth and sixth and seventh. As they were about to turn left on the seventh intersection into a low passageway, they heard voices screaming back, and this time not their echos. Adult screams, deeper voices of maybe two or three men. 

“They heard us!! They heard us!!” Not knowing what to do, they screamed a bit more, waiting for a reply. However muffled, it sounded like male voices replying, “stay still, we will come to you”! Screaming back, each boy clutched the arm closest to him in excitement and relief. The next call from the men was a bit closer. “Call back!” “We’re here!!” Lucas blurted out his scream before the others. Again, silence, all ears perked, then, “Call back!”. Sam spoke, “Okay, we will scream ‘over here!’ on the count of three”. Sam counted for the group, “One! Two! Three! Over Here!!” As quickly as silence rolled back in, it retreated with the sound of boots walking and scuffing toward them.

Two men, one being the ranger, emerged into the passage where the boys were standing. The relief spilled out from the boys. Sam clutched the thermometer and then checked its reading. Still 44 degrees. The ranger spoke,”you can tell us all about it after we get you out of here”. 

The walk back out was seemingly quick in relation to the day’s adventure. When they reached the Grand Column, they paused and told the men how it was Sam’s birthday today. “You boys are lucky. We saw three bikes stashed in the bushes down the trail some and got suspicious and thought we should do a safety sweep before the work starts. Overdue maintenance is scheduled starting today for the next three months and the park has been closed for a week already.”

When they emerged from the cave, Tony left his nickel at the entrance to pay homage to the cave gods. When Sam got home, he placed the room thermometer back where he found it that morning, in his parents’ kitchen and noted it read 68 degrees. He deemed 44 from thereon would be his lucky number. And while it may not have been the adventure he planned on for his twelfth birthday, time in the cave that day, getting lost, then being found, and sticking together throughout, taught him some things. He thought about those Thai boys and their coach and how much worse their circumstances were comparatively. He thought about the importance of friendship, and how the mind can be calmed by the breath. And he thought about how his teacher was right. How the weather in a cave really and truly does not change.