Word: Welkin

 

welkin

\ WEL-kin \  , noun;

1. the sky; the vault of heaven.

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Kyle stared up at the tiny hole in the ceiling of the cavern.  It was a bright, sunny day on the surface and a thin beam of light filtered through the hole.  His mind raced, trying to figure out how to make use of it to contact the outside world. 

               “Hey, Kyle, look what the felines made.”  Jill called out as she jogged over to him.  Kyle’s train of thought was instantly broken.  He wasn’t terribly off put by that though, since he had been unable to come up with any feasible plans.

               “What is it?”  Kyle asked.

               “Here, I’m pretty sure it’s a painting of what they think of the world.”

               Jill had been working on a way of communicating with their feline hosts since the two of them had been made religious figures.  She had met with only slightly more success that Kyle’s attempts at contact with the outside.  It had quickly been determined that language was out due to simple biological restraints.  It was obvious to anyone that their vocal cords were simply too different to allow verbal communication.  Jill had tried music, but had quickly discovered the felines had no concept of that art.  It had come down to visual communication.  The felines used a blue paint like substance for various marking purposes, and Jill was teaching them how to use it as a crude written language. 

               Currently, she held their latest attempt.  It was a thin stone slab covered with the irradiant glow of the fresh paint made from the glowing butterflies that lived in the cave.  Kyle looked it over and was able to get a rough sense of what she had meant.  There were two large curved domes there, one over the other.  The inner dome was clearly meant to be the cave, as there was a small gap in the top and what looked to be the scraggly apply tree under it.  The upper dome was most likely the sky.  It was like a giant, vaulted roof covering everything.  There was no indication at all of any kind of surface world, seeing as the sky dome simply wrapped around the stone cavern.  They may have even thought the two were in direct contact, given how close they were depicted.

               “Huh.  Interesting world view these guys have.”  Kyle said.  “Wonder what they’ll think if they ever get out of this place and see the real sky.”

               “Probably something like heaven or something similar.”  Jill replied.  “Speaking of the sky, any luck getting us under it again?”

               “Not even one.  The only thing I know is that that hole is lined with something reflective enough to get sunlight all the way down here.  The problem is, we don’t have any lights powerful enough to shine anything back up, even at night.  Maybe if we could shine a flashlight directly under the hole, but we don’t have any way of getting up to it.”

               “Maybe if we used our climbing gear we can scale the walls?”  Jill suggested.

               “We don’t have enough rope to do that.  Plus, I’m not too keen on climbing the inside of a large dome.”

               “Oh, right.” 

               The walls of the dome were smooth, so there were precious little hand and foot holds to grab onto. Plus, even with their gear, the inside of a dome was an extremely difficult thing to climb, and neither really wanted to risk it with the small amount of rope they had left.   

               “Do you have any flares or anything?”  Jill asked.

               “I have one flare.  And it won’t matter.  Again, it would be too far away to notice up there.  A flashlight would actually have a better chance of being seen, and even that won’t work.”

               “Oh.  So what’s left to try?  Maybe we could build a ladder out of rocks or something.”

               “It’s a nice thought.  But building one high enough would be way too much effort, and would be unstable at best.  The risk to the locals of a stone ladder like that would be too great.  We don’t really want these guys angry at us after all.”

               “What about cell phones?”  Jill threw out.  Kyle looked at her blankly.

               “You really think we’ll get a signal down here?”  He asked.

               “Well, maybe.  I mean it’s unlikely, yeah, but you never know.  Maybe whatever surface is reflecting the light will also bounce a reception signal down here.  I know it’ll be weak, but it’s something to try, right?”

               “I guess so.  And it’s not like I have anything else to try out.”

               Jill rummaged through her pack until she found her heavy duty cell phone.  She had turned it off early on to conserve battery life, but now was the time to at least give it a shot.  She turned it on and looked hopefully at the reception.  The words ‘No Service’ flashed on the screen.  Undaunted, Jill raised the phone to the sky, shifting her position from time to time and checking.

               Suddenly, she stopped, staring at the phone’s screen.  A slow smile crossed her lips and she let out a jubilant cry of triumph.  Just about every feline in hearing distance stopped what it was doing at looked at her curiously.

               “I got it!”  She called out.

               “Wait, really?  You got a signal?”  Kyle asked.  He felt like he might be able to see they sky in all its glory sooner than ever.

               “It’s weak, only one bar.  And it looks like it comes and goes, but it’s there.  If I time it right, I should be able to send out a SOS to people who know where we are.”

“That’s great!”  Kyle could hardly contain his excitement.  “Oh, but make sure they bring something sturdier than rope, and lots of it.  Also…”

“I know, I know.  Hang on, let me take care of this.”  Jill said.  Her eyes were wide with joy as she typed out a message.  “Ok, I’m letting them know about the ropes, and to bring some kind of defense and such.  They’ll know to watch out for dangerous animals.”

Jill raised the phone to the sky once she was done with the message.  She stood there without sending it, looking intently at the signal bar.

“Well?”

“Not yet.”  A long pause.  “There!”  She quickly hit the send button and waited.  When she lowered it, her eyes had filled with tears. Kyle waited expectantly for her to say something, hoping it wasn’t bad news.  “It was sent.  Someone’ll get it any time now.  We might be able to go home in a matter of days.” 

Kyle ran up and grabbed Jill in a massive hug as they both burst out laughing.  The felines, not knowing what was going on, mimicked their joy as best they could.  It was like a bunch of cats trying to laugh, but somehow it seemed right.  Neither Kyle nor Jill knew exactly how long they had been down in that cave, but they didn’t care much.  The place was filled with the sound of the felines celebrating something they didn’t even know about, but all the two of them could think about as they looked up at the sky through their tiny window was that they could go home.

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And thus, an end is in sight.  I'm not sure how many more stories will feature these two, but given what happens in this one, it probably won't be too many more.  But that's not such a bad thing, is it?  After all, every story must eventually end, and this one is no different.  We'll see what actually happens though.  Even I don't have any real good ideas yet.