Eli and the Golden Caves

A short story first published in Mirror Mirror (2021)

There are some truths that can’t help but ring false, some revelations so unsettling that the only thing to do is laugh them off and just go about your business. People, once they reach a certain age, aren’t half so open-minded as they imagine themselves to be. This is why so many fairy stories involve children.

I was still a child when my understanding of the world and humanity’s place in it was shattered beyond all hope of reconstruction. I accepted this new truth at the time, but the older I get, the more I doubt myself. It would certainly be easier if I could forget the whole thing or make myself believe it was just a dream. But I know it wasn’t.

It started with me running through the woods. I had no idea where I was headed, just far away from my school. I couldn’t go back there. I wasn’t even sure I could go home again, not after the mess I’d made.

Corporal punishment was still a thing back then, and I’d taken my share of beatings for my smart mouth. But today I’d grabbed the paddle first and smacked the principal with it right across his fat face. That just made him angrier, of course, and he was about to really let me have it, so I grabbed the first thing I could use as a real weapon and struck first. I’ll never forget the feeling of that stapler colliding with the side of that man’s head. It shouldn’t have felt so soft like that. Compared to metal, a skull isn’t much, I guess.

So I ran. And I kept running, long after I probably could have stopped to catch my breath.