“Well, I better take him into my home and treat the wound on his head. A warm bed and dry clothes will raise his spirits again. It has been a long time since I’ve met another human.

  Hey look at that brooch, he’s also met Misty Eye. That reminds me, what do these peculiar humans actually sleep in? The mushrooms don’t offer good bedding.

  There isn’t a lot of soft material lying around either. On his back seems to be some kind of portable bedding, which is thoroughly wet. We’ll need a heat source to dry him and his things.

  As long as nothing’s caved in, on my way home, I come past hot fissures. He’ll get used to the smell coming out of them.”

  Some time passes and to the unconscious ones it might be utter oblivion/ eternity but all of a sudden one and then the other eye begin blinking again. All is utterly blurry.

  The throbbing pain in his head dulls his other senses. As he opens his eyes and focuses them, he notices the fissures underneath him with foul-smelling gases leaving the fissures and some faint red light coming out of them.

  He is thinking to himself: “I am hurting all over my body. I hope no bones are broken. Let’s see if I can move or better yet get up.

  Wait a minute, did I now truly jump into the river and I made it out again? Not only that, but I also seem to be on a dry warm spot, away from water. I hear sounds I didn’t expect. Are those hooves?”

  Around the corner, there steps a centaur, who has rugged brown-black fur and a naked torso, long free-flowing hair and very strong limbs.

  As he sees Henry awake his facial expression turns into a smile, while beginning to speak: ‘‘Hello stranger, I hope you aren’t feeling too bad, all bruises considered?”

  ‘‘Besides the blood and bruises and a throbbing headache, I think I am lucky to be alive, after such a rush of adrenaline. Is it you I have to thank for saving me?”

  ‘‘No, the torrent kept you alive, I just found you bleeding, lying on the shore, so I took you to these hot fissures to dry your body and warm you up again.”

  ‘‘The water is indeed quite cold, a general feeling down here in the cave.”

  ‘‘Yes well even if it isn’t always warm, at least it is a very interesting place. The cold doesn’t kill you either, as long as you can stay warm or find places to warm yourself up again. Without an active fire that is of course less easy.”

  ‘‘Oh yes what I wouldn’t give to have a nice warm fire now. Now that you mention it, where are we?”

  ‘‘In this cave there is no place I would call there but to me, it is all everlasting darkness with some dots of light spread around. Most of the species have found their corner in the darkness, we only happen on each other once in a while. As most of us prefer to stay in our corner, only some like me travel through.”

  “We?”

  “Yes, there are a huge variety of beings in here, far too many to name them all. In one lifetime I couldn’t even visit all of them, so I gave up on that, once I realised that.

  Besides, if I travel to get to know foreign to me culture and beings, how can I do that without actively spending some real time with each of them, instead of rushing from place to place to mark a stamp to prove I’ve been there, no such is not my way. Sorry, I haven’t yet introduced myself. My name is Bhosun of the centaurs. Whom are you?”

  ‘‘My name is Henry Driftwood of the humans and again, thank you Bhosun.”

  ‘‘Don’t even mention it. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. As far as I can tell, you are all dried up, let’s go to my hearth, which is where I intended to go in the first place.

  I haven’t been there for a long time. I am just returning from a journey. It will probably be a mess due to my long absence, so don’t expect everything to look cosy.

  It will probably be badly lit with decomposing smelly mushroom grow basins everywhere. Let’s find out whether you can still walk.”

  Henry gets his back up straight and tentatively stretches his legs and arms. Noticing that even though they are badly bruised, all seems to be working fine. Henry gets up and they begin walking.

  ‘‘Did you perhaps meet those furry-balled creatures?”, asked Henry.

  Bhosun takes on an amused look: ‘‘Not bad for a wobble. The Furrgals, oh yes, some of them rode with me on my back. They have a warm spot in my heart.

  I lived a while with them but eventually, I felt as if I’d be eating away their food even though they couldn’t conceive of not sharing with me, which made me love them even more.

  They are always together as a group and all of their activities are group efforts. None of them will be allowed to sink just so that any other one will be better off.

  Once there came a huge flood and the Furrgals only had themselves and no easy way out, so they all bundled together into one huge ball and somehow floated with the water and were able to survive, by taking turns to be on the underside of the floating ball, just long enough so nobody needed to drown.”

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  ‘‘The Furrgals seem like a good friend to have. They are friends I would have loved to have on the surface.”

  ‘‘They are great friends but they come and go. They never stay for long. You can’t depend on others for everything you do, you need to be able to rely on yourself too. First you’ve got to be a friend unto yourself, nobody else can do that for you. Walk behind me, this is a narrow passage.”

  “Alright, thanks. That isn’t as easy as it seems. I get attached to friends, having them around, without even beginning about befriending myself.”

  Bhosun softens his voice: “That’s the seed that will eventually drive you apart, attachment. Real friendship is freedom to be, especially to yourself. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have real discussions or ask hard questions. Hence the question: Why attach yourself to something that just as easily goes again, isn’t stable, may become better than what you are used to?”

  Henry sighs: “That’s what you mean about asking hard questions? Why would you not rather force me to listen?”

  Bhosun smiles: “That’s the seed of an arrow, that when let loose will come back, straight at my heart.”

  Henry looks away pensively and stays silent for a while. “How do these things go together, having real and honest discussion and not needing someone else to change for you?”

  “Are you sure you can see yourself well enough, without clash and friction?”

  Drips are falling from the ceiling, falling on them, as they walk in complete darkness. Luckily Bhosun knows the way.

  Henry thinks for a while, “If I can see my hand I can also see myself and my behaviour clearly. Why complicate something that’s just best observed, without attachment.”

  “If I recall rightly, you just admitted to be a clinger.”

  “Exactly, because I see myself rightly.”

  Bhosun answers with warm precision, “Except for this calling, still unanswered. What else might there be unanswered, unseen?”

  “Fuck me, more to discover… Doesn’t this ever end?”

  “Do you want to end discovery? Why not stay curious? Everybody can give you answers into the thousands, they’ll never quench your thirst, will sometimes even hinder more than help. Take your time to just admire a rock standing still.”

  “Yeah exactly, be still like a rock. How can a rock be curious?”

  “How do you know that it isn’t. Ain’t we all weird creatures to another?”

  “But they don’t talk back.”

  “Feeling superior about your speech organs? I don’t see a rock behaving superior about how it communicates. It’s rather you that lacks the organs of perception to which you add the inherited ability to make bad conclusions about almost everything around you.”

  “Of course our speech is superior.”

  “Humility is accepting that you are but a small blip amongst giants and very small beings. Forget any notion of superiority, that’s a disease.”

  “You make me feel like I got to knock my head some more and jump a few more times into the torrent.”

  “No, that will never be enough... Just trust in what brought you here. It knows when you are ready for new insights. Life caters to our needs, less so what we imagine to need.”

  “I am luckily not much of a materialist but people, I like a lot, especially Clarity. I will really miss her at times. I will yearn for her, when she isn’t around and look for more distance when she is around.”

  “It seems to me that you still aren’t clear within yourself about what it is you seek in being in relationship but like I said, become a friend to the agglomeration of experiences that is a you.”

  “Of course I don’t know these things. The cave it crippled me and I’m here to be whole again.”

  “The cave can’t cripple that which is whole, only that which isn’t. It’s a gift in disguise of a lot of pain.”

  “Pain or emptiness?”

  “Emptiness for sure is worse. I feel that you have the right intention to get out of that mess. Don’t come between yourself and that intention.”

  “If you put it like that, then perhaps yes, I should just let my intentions unfold on their rhythm, as long as I keep on making intentions.”

  “You can make intentions on what you can imagine or know already but what about that which hasn’t presented itself yet? The unknown is invisible or still to be seen. Look around yourself, do you think you perceive truly?”

  “Well I have seen you and the cave, right?”

  “You’ve still got a long way ahead of you, not everything is as it seems.”

  “Do you mean to say, that you are not what you seem to be?”

  Bhosun cracks up into a laughing fit, “That’s a way of putting it, you’ll find out what I mean by that. Duck right now, we are right before my hearth.

  As you can see there are still some mushrooms lighting my hearth but it’s a real mess. That’s a better introduction to my place, not when everything runs smoothly. My hearth’s a rather large tunnel-like space with different passages leading to other parts of my home.”

  Henry looks around at everything, amazed by all the space, “That’s something quite different, compared to the cramped feeling of being in the dark the whole time. I get why you set up your space here, feels cosy.”

  “It has been very dark and inhospitable before I came. Bit by bit I forged myself a home where I like staying, fashioned around my needs. There’s a source of water coming through here that never runs dry and over the years of studying those mushrooms that glow, I was taught how to grow them myself. I’ve even been able to grow different varieties. They absolutely need a wet climate so it was only logical to set my base up here. If you want, there is a free cove just around the corner where you can make a space for yourself. I can teach you about my mushroom farm, if you’d like that Henry?”

  ‘‘Bhosun, I am lost for words. So far I’ve constantly been moving on, quite lost to be honest and now you’re offering me a home and an occupation. Yes thank you, I’d love to learn about these mushrooms and also more from you.”

  ‘‘That’s splendid to have a little company here, but let’s fill our belly first, before we do anything else. We can’t do much with an empty stomach. Sit down, I’ll see if there are still some edible mushrooms amongst all the mushy ones, so you can regain your forces.”

  Henry puts down his mattress and sits on it.