Chapter One: Their Meeting
Two people are stranded in a
cave-in, and become separated. One of
the two finds a hole covered by some of
the rocks, and he hears the second
person's voice from within the pit. The
buried person laments that his fate is to die
to the wretched sounds of the others
vociferating in pain as they submit to death.
The first person sympathizes with the
voice, who appears to be trapped
underneath the wreckage. The person begins to
walk away, but stumbles in the dark
cavern and hits one of the walls. Tripping
over, the vibrations he has made cause the
overhanging stalactites (stalagmites?) to
crush his legs, pinning him so that his back
is able to lightly rest on the pile of rocks
covering the buried man. The now-pinned
man cries out as he feels his legs recover
from shock and the pain rushes back in.
Diffidently, but sincerely, the buried man
asks the pinned man if he plans to die to
the sounds of the Grim Reaper's works, to
which the other replies that he actually has
a music player in his pocket. Hesitantly, the
buried man asks him if he is able to slip an
earbud down through the holes in the
rocks that have trapped him in that state.
The other takes his music player out of his
pocket, and plugs one earbud into his right
ear. He considers that the earbud may not
reach, but he feels about the rocks until he
finds a good-sized opening small enough
for the other earbud to fit through.
While he began to drop the earbud down,
the pinned man expressed his concern
about how the cord may not reach the
buried man. To the pinned man's surprise,
there he felt a slight tug on the music
player's cord--the buried man appeared to
have inserted the other earbud into his ear
already. The pinned man realized that the
tug meant that the buried man was actually
not more than a few feet below him in the
hole--and in that cave's encompassing
darkness it may have been possible that
there was no pit at all (however, this
thought never occurred to either of the men).
Anxious as to how the other would
respond to his music, the pinned man
requested that the buried man pick a type
of music he would prefer to hear: a song
with a bright, happy melody, a song with a
fast tempo and beat, or (among others) a
instrumental piece that had a moderate
pace to it. The buried man, intrigued by the
special description, requested the
instrumental piece. Thus the first piece
began to play through the earbuds shared
by the two men:
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~ ♬ "Akogi Guitar Medley 1" by Akogi ~
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Chapter Two: His Dilemma, Part One
They began to converse with one another,
commenting on the soft plucking of the
guitar. The buried man asked the other if
he was into all those "wild Japanese trends"
that had been making their way around the
world lately, gradually forgetting the mortal
peril they were both in. A little shaken by
the question, the pinned man laughed and
confirmed the question by adding the he
had been on his way to an anime
convention in a nearby city when he took
what he believed would be a small detour
to join the twenty or so who were
exploring this cavern.
The buried man smiled, as the other did
not appear to be a man but a boy, of
maybe nineteen at the most. To the silent
melody, the pinned boy asked how the
other had ended up joining the spelunking
expedition. With a heavy sigh, the buried
man replied that he had come here with his
daughter and son. The boy laughed, as he
claimed to have thought the situation they
were in to be something out of a manga,
but he explained that either he would have
to have been born an orphan or the buried
man would have to have been divorced for
the scene to fit in with the tragic and
dramatic plots of such Japanese persuasion.
The buried man chuckled to himself at the
boy's wild ramblings, and told his new
companion in peril that his son and the
boy seemed much alike. The boy became sullenly
silent, and asked the man if he really cared
about his children.
It was the man's turn to be startled, and he
asked the boy reproachfully what he meant
by speaking so harshly. The boy answered
him with a long sigh--that of a teenager,
thought the man--and in a voice that
seemed to be soft, strict, and serious all at
once decried the man below him for only
caring for himself; selfishly complaining
about what he would hear before dying
without ever mentioning his daughter nor
his son who allegedly was much like the
now boy that now criticized the man.
It is unsure whether the boy was truly
serious, or expected the man to break
down in tears over this quite blunt
statement. Adding injury to the already
existent insult, the boy spitefully twisted his
head and jerked the earbud out of the
man's ear as a result. The boy paused the
strum of the tune, and he listened for the
shrieking whines of the buried man
to commence once more.
However, there came no such sound from the
throat of the man, hushing the spiteful boy.
The boy suddenly felt the pile of rocks that he
rested upon and that buried the man below
quake with such an unexpected intensity
that the boy, his wild anime-influenced
mind overtaking his common sense,
imagined that the father he had insulted
was going to break free of the rocks in a
torrent of rage.
This did not occur either, the tremor that
had moved the rocks slowly lessened in
force until a tiny quiver was all that could
be felt moving against the boy's back. The
father began to stutter, and through his
suppressed tears and agony he asked the
boy what right he had to assume the father
was such a coldhearted tramp who did not
care for the very people he had help to
bring into the world. His reason for
requesting the boy's music, the dolorous
father recounted, was so that he would not
have to face the inevitable screams of his
children that he would doubtless encounter
in this wretched incarceration they were all
going to expire in.
The boy stayed silent for a long time, and
the other kept the rocks aquiver until the
father felt a small object hit against his ear.
He realized this was the earbud, and
regrettably apologized to the boy above
him for his indeed selfish behavior. The
boy began to feel the cord tug again; he
sympathetically told the father that there
was no need to push away the music. The
boy dejectedly added that he was just as
selfish as the man, and the music player (as
if in response to the mutual compromise)
skipped onto the next song in its library:
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~ ♬ "Butterfly" by Strike Four ~
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Next, Chapter Three: His Dilemma, Part Two