Travelling Souvenirs



Your voice echoes through the cavern.

The amber is silken, shining down here. It all looks wet.

The humidity from outside only leaks in a little bit; mostly the cave is cool and moist.

It smells of moss and tastes of metal.


“Come look at this!” you shout.


I am rooted in the amber, trapped in sap that over time became gemstone.

It is unbearably old and as beautiful and terrifying to look at

as it might be to meet the gaze of a Gorgon.


“Come here! You have to see this!”


You have found a mosquito, calcified in a glowing tomb.

She looks fetal, almost.

Each of her insect joints, delineated forever against the shine of stone.


“Isn’t it beautiful?” you ask,

holding it up against

one

rogue

stream

of

light,

pouring in through the cracks of the cave.


“You are holding death,” I respond.

In the distance, there is water dripping, somewhere hidden and safe.