Chasing the Dragon

She had been hiking through the mountains for most of the day when the storm began rolling in. Pulling the hood of her sweetshirt, quickly over her head, she began to shiver violently. The wind picked up instantly and began whipped branches and leaves against the sides of the rocks. She hadn't expected this, in the least. The weather this morning had reported nothing but warm, sunny skies for the entire rest of the week. Where in the world did this come from? She found a dry boulder and sat down, resting her weight against the wall of the cave behind her. "At least it's dry in here," she thought. There was a small opening in the ceiling of the cave that gave her the smallest peak at the dark clouds rolling quickly across the sky. As the clouds grew thicker, the cave grew darker, yet here, in the empty darkness of the cave, she felt safe. The rain still pounded the dirt and rock outside, but inside her clothes began to dry and the warmth that emitted from the Earth's rocks kept her surprisingly comfortable. She closed her eyes tightly, listening to the violent storm that was fighting around her. She drifted off to sleep feeling safe, secure, and untouchable.

When she opened her eyes, she realized that an old friend was standing at the mouth of the cave, watching her. Waiting for her. She leaned forward and strained to her what her friend was yelling, but couldn't hear the words over the violent gusts of wind. She took a couple steps closer to her friend, who outstretched her hand and reached for her, but the closer to her friend she got, the colder, wetter, weaker, and more scared she became. She appreciated her friend weathering the storm to come to her, but why step back outside into that cold, wet rain when she could remain in this cave and stay so warm, dry, and safe. Day after day, she turned away friend after friend, with a smile on her face. She was happy here. Sometimes when it was storming, the mountain air would become so thin that her head would spin. She would have a hard time walking from one end of the cave to the other, often stumbling over the tiny pebbles on the dirt floor. She didn't mind those feelings, though, because even if she couldn't walk straight, that cave provided her with such fierce protection that her insides had become numb. Numb was good. She couldn't feel that wind that whipped right down to the bone. She wasn't blinded with pain when lightening exploded across the sky. She no longer felt that her body would melt into a puddle of nothing if it got wet. The cave helped her get and stay numb, and she liked it.

After about a year she began waking up with a chill. The cold would remind her and she would shiver, not from the cold but from the idea that she was feeling. She didn't want to feel, so she moved further back, deeper into the cave. As she went deeper that warm, numbness began to return. She found a new boulder and sat down to relax for a while. Soon she drifted off to sleep. The next time she awoke, not only did she feel a chill, but she felt a strong draft. She knew she needed to find that safe, dry warmth again. She knew it was there because she had felt it before. Why was it so hard for her to find that feeling again? Not liking the thought of not being completely numb to the world beyond the cave, again she tried to move deeper inside. The deeper she went the darker it got. The darker it got the more lonely it became. The lonelier it became, the quieter it was. In the deafening silence, she could hear herself screaming out to be able to feel that numbness again.

She walked faster and faster, trying desperately to get deep enough into the cave that she would feel that curtain of numbness drape over her. She longed for that numb feeling more then she longed for food or water. She would rather have stayed alone, in the silence of the cave, as long as she was cushioned by numbness, then ever speak a word to another human again. Given the choice between reality and numbness, she would choose to be numb any day.
Each day though, she found it more and more difficult to get deep enough inside the cave to find that feeling of content. The harder and faster she walked, the more she needed to be numb, but she just couldn't find it. So she kept walking. Disappearing deeper and deeper into that dark cave, she never realized that her friends and family were all standing helplessly at the mouth of the cave, calling out to her. If she had noticed, she didn't let on. She did know they were somewhere and that they loved her. They missed her dearly and wanted her to turn back and come home. Part of her knew this. However, that was also the part that she was trying so desperately to numb. Why couldn't she find that feeling? It used to be so easy to feel nothing. It used to be so easy to disappear inside herself, but now, no matter how hard,no matter how fast she moved, all she got was lost deeper in that dark cave, and still not numb. She kept moving, though. Looking for that wonderful feeling of nothingness that she just couldn't seem to catch anymore. She wouldn't stop trying, though. She would search for that wonderful feeling of nothingness for the rest of her life, if she had to.