The Cave, by Norbert Kovacs

Wisconsin Ice Cave, by Drossos Skyllas (USA, b. Greece) 1950

The Cave

The scene outside the cave was cold to the core. The tall firs stood motionless. Their shadows fell on packed snow flecked the color of steel. The snow had crunched like ice when stepped on. Down around the lake, wide heavy-bodied pines made a wall by the water. The surface of the lake hardly stirred that windless day. The hills beyond lay crusted in snow except where the hard granite showed. 

The mouth of the cave that offered us this view of the landscape had several icicles along its upper lip. These hung far down over the cave mouth, each long and thin as sword blades. The ones in the center, the longest, cut a line down the middle of the mouth, almost splitting the scene outside in half. We imagined the icicles were a warning to us over the stiff cold of the cave and the landscape, as if it were some doom we were near. We could picture, in fact, the icicles cutting or shattering over any of us who did not take heed of them. And those icy daggers seemed determined to grow. If the ones in the center were any longer, they would have fused to the lower lip of the cave, locking us inside. We would be left no way then to reach the common world where we lived, the one of neighbors, families, and loved ones. We would have to suffer in our cold state apart, we told each other and sensed a chill we still hadn’t named.  

Norbert Kovacs

Norbert Kovacs lives and writes in Hartford, Connecticut. He loves visiting art museums, especially the Met in New York. He has published art-inspired stories in The Ekphrastic Review, Worthing Flash, and The Argyle. His website: http://www.norbertkovacs.net.