Hidden Gems

There were one hundred heavily armed soldiers behind me as I wound my way through the deep forrestation surrounding the Congo River. There was no slowing down, and certainly no time to rest. They got on my trail at Monono, and pursued me through two full days of all out running under unrelenting monsoon rains. The pack on my back was heavy, being filled with millions of dollars worth of unprocessed diamonds which had been secreted away from the kimberlite mines of Botswana, and the DRC. I would be a rich man if I could make it to Lake Tanganyik, and if I could bribe a fisherman to take me to Tanzania, and if I could get aboard the train at the Kogoma railhead to Dar Es Salaam. Granted, there were a lot of “if’s” but it was also a lot of money.

I found a cave on the Kombola completely by chance. A waterfall had, over the centuries, worn away the rock behind the falls, leaving a space large enough for a man to walk into, while the water itself provided a veil to the entrance, and its roar drowned any sound that might give me away inside. I built a fire with wood from an abandoned pack rat’s nest for warmth, and laid my soaked boots and socks out to dry beside it. Using a stick from the fire as a torch, I went to explore the rest of “my” cave.

Near the backwall was a hole, a hole so deep and dark that my torch could not reach the bottom, but there was something down there, some bright spot in the darkness that piqued my curiousity. I gripped the torch between my clenched teeth and began to climb down, my fingers and bare toes gripping the cold, slick rock walls as I went.

I estimated I had climbed forty feet when my foot touched bottom. The torch was burned to nothing, but the strange glow I had seen from above remained, and shone brighter still in the pitch blackness of the cave. I reached for it. It was a... a... a laptop?

The computer was most likely dropped from above, as its face was cracked, but it still worked, so it could not have been here long.

Someone had been here! Someone who might return... and my bag of diamonds was still up above, along with my shoes, and my change of clothes!

I pressed the laptop’s face for light, and glanced down at it. “What was this site that it was pulled up to?“ I wondered. “What was this Prose.com?“ I began to flip through the posts, finally finding a cold rock to sit on while I read and tapped at the “like” button for my favorites.

“Hmmm...” I thought. “Maybe I should try posting a story?”

That was a year and a half ago now, and I am still at the bottom of this cave sitting amongst the cold, watery drips, and the slimy rocks, typing away at my stories, but I see no rush... those silly diamonds will wait until I finish one more Challenge!