Lit eZine Vol 6 | p-13 | FICTION | Lost and Found at Fingal’s Cave

SHORT STORY

LOST AND FOUND AT FINGAL’S CAVE
by Susan H. Evans

I pack my gear and board the boat to Staffa Island from the Isle of Iona, Scotland. Then we sail out a little way. The tempestuous ocean — dark gray and choppy with whitecaps — almost convinces the skippers to turn back to Iona. 

      Fortunately, the boat keeps pitching through the rollers, and in a while, I spot Staffa. Small and oddly shaped, the island resembles a cake that someone iced in vertical furrows up its sides. The boat captain claims lava flow 60 million years ago created the island’s unusual basalt hexagonal columns and its plateau of lava and ash. 

     To get to the top of the island, we passengers have to climb straight up a steep aluminium ladder. My knees a-trembling, I try not to look down at the boat heaving up and down in the spray. I do once, though, and espy Davy Jones, in a wet, black slicker, reclining on a boulder in the deep briny, whistling a tuneless sea ditty. He winks.

     Over the ups and downs on the roof of the island, I trail others, unable to climb as fast up and down the rocky parts. I wander blindly, not knowing where the puffins are or where the cave might be. Scaling a mid-size hill in the heat, my legs feel like rusty pistons. When I finally drag my way to the top, one lad points downward. Oh, heck! The puffins appear as wee specks way-y-y down near the water’s edge. So much for seeing the puffins.

     But no time to waste. Since we only have an hour on the island, I better hop to it if I want to see Fingal’s Cave, so I rush like a speeding snail back to the flight of stairs.  

     Twenty minutes later, I meet two gray-haired women in windbreakers idling on the landing of the ladder. They affirm the cave is to our right, but add, “We’re too scared to try and see it.”  I understand why. Over the churning sea and jutting rock, a narrow rock trail leads to the cave with just one handrail that disappears around a corner. Falling into the jaws of death, Scottish-style.  

     Even long escalator rides give me pause, so I almost fold, too. Finally, I ask myself, “When will you be here again?”  The answer convinces me to fling caution into the glove compartment of my claptrap brain. I begin baby-stepping my way over the rocky, dizzying precipice, clinging to a black cable bolted to the rocks like it is a winning lottery ticket. 

     The boulders quickly become big wide chunks of rock, easily travelled over. A blessed relief and an unfamiliar sense of empowerment sweeps over me. 

      Soon, I arrive at a large entryway. The same basalt columns that run up the sides of Staffa compose the cave walls, and its fractured pillars form a crude walkway into the cave. Peering in, I am unprepared for the magnitude and majesty that greets my eyes. Surely, if ever heaven descends to earth and earth ascends to heaven, it is here. Imagine a stony, gray, supernatural cathedral 40 feet wide, 227 to 270 feet long, and with an arched roof around 72 feet above sea level. Further, imagine a cathedral’s nave forever swept by a black and swelling sea. 

    Standing on the narrow cliff just a little way into the cave’s mouth, I snap picture after picture, lost in a dreamy, hypnotic state. Then I jump like a jack-in-the-box when the enormous hydraulic power of the ocean rushes into the cave, swirling and smashing into its walls, the whoosh of the powerful waves thunderous. The spray hits the bottom of my pants and splashes almost to my waist. When I remember my waterproofs reach from toe to neck, I relax. 

       Unwillingly, I leave the cave and begin scaling the rocks back over to the landing. Two rugged-looking Scots come up behind me, and I tell them to go around since I am so slow. After I get to the landing, the same men look out to sea. One says, “You are not that slow,” and their compliment warms every cell in my body. I feel like I conquered Denali. 

        Detecting the accent, they ask where I live. When I answer “Tennessee,” they smile broadly and ask “Memphis?” Their mouths turn down when I say I don’t live near Graceland. 

        I tremble my way down the ladder again, hair scattering out from my scalp in the scud like dandelion fluff, and get yanked on board by the skipper.  

       The boat jiggles underfoot.  I stagger to the back, plop down on a slightly wet seat cushion, and take one last look back at the great darkened hulk of Staffa. Then the boat chugs back towards Fionnphort. 

       As the ship plows through the sea, I sit quietly and enjoy the briny mist dampening my face. I watch the dark waves, and reflect on the Medicine Wheel that Helen, the gardener, and I created in the upper garden. My age places me in the northern position of the Medicine Wheel, so I am closer to the winter of my days and ultimately to death. But wisdom is given or earned at this point of life and the stars are mine now. 

      And I realize something else. It is that the inner and outer journey I’ve craved so long began once I began carefully walking along that narrow ledge. My emotions rise when I think that, like the merging of the sea cave and heaven, my heart’s desire manifests on these windy, wet isles. I have reached for heaven, and heaven reaches for me.