jump down a manhole, light yourself a candle

explored the caves beneath the Petrovaradin fortress, David and Sara and i, with two LEDs between us—one on David's head, and the bike one (best present ever, from Siarny parents), with its Epilepsy Inducing Strobe function, looped around my thumb. no entrance is marked and the gate barring the way in swings haphazardly on one hinge. from there, though, it's a slow and (compared to the wind whistling up from the river) warm descent into complete darkness. negligible light filters in through shafts at various points; you can be sure that these are not escape routes—they're not even breath-supporting. the tunnels extend forever, and on five levels (we're told). the original Austro-Hungarian signage remains on the walls near crossroads, with faint green lettering and numbering traceable beneath layers of powdering whitewash and scrawled graffitis. in one of the vertical shafts, presumably once dropping down to the next level but un-climbable (or even clamberable), but for the sand piled inside its brick walls, someone had propped a 2-dimensional bright-red child-sized figure, anachronistically advertising something way up on the frozen crust. turning the corner, two lights fell on it at once; we all leapt back, with sharp intakes of breath. i'm not sure what we thought it was—or why it didn't belong—not sure that it matters, really.

i would have run, headlong, down the corridors, eager for the trepidation fueling my heart, racing my brain; David voiced the caution, reigned me in, reminded me that i held half the light.

later: a pair of gloves, stuck in the wall with the fingers extended and settled with dust. the others didn't see. i clamped my mouth.

much later: sat around, back in the warm house, yelling about language for as long as our voices held out. of course the discussion continued long after we had stopped speaking.