There was a cacophony of bugs buzzing about in the air, doing pirouettes and chatting about how their days were going. There were the pitiful cries of helpless drops of water as they fell towards the ground. There was the repetitive “humphs” of sneakers as they were smushed against the ground. There was the sound of bats shuffling their wings as they decided that yes it was way too early for them to be up and yes their alarms would wake them up in like 9 more hours. But really there weren’t any of those things. But really it was dead silent, and it was pitch black. It just felt like there needed to be all those things. Because we are so used to living life with perpetual noise filling the spaces in our minds that we don’t even know that there is any noise. We don’t even know those spaces are there. And then suddenly you’re at the end of a lava tube where it’s 32 degrees and you turn off all your flashlights and stop talking and there is NOTHING. Your mind starts to grasp for some kind of acknowledgement of your existence because it’s so quiet and still that maybe you don’t. Maybe you’re dead. Maybe you were never born. Maybe there isn’t even such a thing as life. Your shoulders start to sag and you become restless because you can’t hold it up anymore, the weight of the nothingness. Your eyes are constantly blinking thinking that one of the times you will open your eyes and oh there are those rocks and that’s where we set our stuff down but no there is no adjusting. You’re trapped in the darkness it’s a spider and you’re stuck in its web and it put earmuffs over your ears so you can’t even hear your own screams when it eats you and your eyes are glued shut by your fear of the unknown. And then you decide that’s enough I can’t take it anymore and the flashlights are turned back on and there it is again: the world. And nothing changed but you feel like something should have changed because you were gone from it and then you realize that you have changed. Because now you know, that there are holes in your mind and there are a million noises that happen in each and every second that the days are made up of. Now you know that sometimes nothing is so much more than something, the way that an empty stomach weighs on the mind, demands to be fed. The way that the absence of light in that lava tube made you itch made you fall to your knees and then the light gently lifted you to your feet and patted you on the head. And then you think: what else don’t I know about the world because I never thought to know.