The Home of Zigo the Dragon

There weren’t always dragons in the valley. - So we thought. Manoa consists of the entire valley, only a few mile away from the hustle and bustle of downtown Honolulu, the capital of the Hawaiian Islands, there is a cave that no one ever returned once they entered. The Manoa valley and it’s vicinity is considered a tropical rainforest. The area receives the rainfalls daily, hence it’s richly vegetated. According to the legend, it is said that in last one hundred year at different point in time, 12 university students who had dared to prove it wrong never came out. Well, that was then- obviously it’s not true any longer now that I had come back.

I have been visiting him, every single day for last 10 years ever since Zigo followed me from his home: the island of dragons. Literally, Zigo is the first and the last dragon I met and will meet unless I could successfully take him back home through the portal beyond the time.

“Wake up, Buddy. It’s time to get moving.” I patted his head.

“Where are we going today? Charlie,” asked telepathically, Zigo with sleepy eyes half closed.

“I found another island and time we haven’t been to. That’s where, “ murmured my answer.

“Do you think I can finally reunite with my family?”, asked Zigo, the exact same question he asked last time with less enthusiasm.

“Honestly, I don’t know…” was mine, much like his response. I didn’t want him to get too hopeful and disappointed when it wasn’t where he wanted to go - His home.

*********

The Spirited Away cave, that is what people in the town called, has been my secret fort and portal to all the islands on the planet of the earth.

Small to big. On or off the map.

I happened to discover the portal soon after I made the cave my secret fort to get alway from chaotic life the adults around me think “good living”.

The first visit was just that - a shot stop to glance inside the cave.

*************

My heart is pounding fast and furious with fear of unknown moment to come: vanishing or surviving.

Few steps into the cave, I can’t see anything. It is pitch black. It felt like an hour, but it has been probably in only a few seconds as my eyes have begun to adjust to the darkness. Still, My feet are frozen. All I can hear is the sound of my beating heart loudly.

I am still here, aren’t I?

I looked around the inside the cave about the size of my bedroom and spotted a narrow path into the deeper, unseeable part of the cave; I was too timid to keep going.

“It’s enough Charlie. You did it,” I said to myself.

As fast as my legs allowed, I turned my back to the lingering darkness and mystery ahead. Fear has stopped testing my fate by going further.

My pride is not admitting the fear that I could become just another statistic: one of those who never returned.

My ego is convinced that I am the only one who made it back.

Who wouldn’t be a bit anxious when you were told that no one had returned after they visited the cave?

************

The victorious night of my return went unnoticed and inconsequential to others but myself. Oblivious to my good mood for the conquering the fear of my existence after the cave, everyone at the dinner table was too busy and preoccupied with the talk and thoughts of the transition from December 31, 1999 to January 1, 2000.

The news of potential Y2K bug or Millennium Bug, a problem in coding of computerized systems to create chaotic situations in computers and computer networks around the world got somewhat out of control like a wildfire at some point.

It is true that the malfunction of computers in both software and hardware would affect in the area of banking, government records, utility systems so on. People are bombarded with many probable chaotic scenarios that may or may not occur in their daily life for sometime now. No wonder that the vast majority of people have been living with anxiety to some degree.

While the conversations about Y2K still going on around me just as the night before, I was planning my second visit to the cave with my bright head light and my favorite Japanese state-of-the-art technology Nikon D1 camera with black yellow shoulder/neck D1 strap, which was my birthday and Christmas gifts from my parents. Growing up, especially when I was small, I used to feel somewhat cheated since my birthday falls on the Christmas Eve. Now I am 20, I don’t really mind it anymore.

“ ….Charlie, are you okay? You look like you are miles away,” Mom asked, eyeing me with concerns.

“ I am fine, Mom. May I be excused? I am a little tired tonight,” I replied with spurious smile.

“ You may, son. After taking your mess to the kitchen and putting them in the dishwasher before you retire tonight,” Dad muttered without looking up from his plate, just as he used to tell me when I was 5.

Without a word, I excused myself from the dinner table carrying my half eaten spaghetti meat balls and table settings to the kitchen. Done everything I was told, I went upstair to my room taking two steps at a time to get ready for the tomorrow’s trip into the cave. My heart was full of anticipation to explore the insides of the cave where no one has seen, or at least returned and told about it.

I had no idea that tomorrow, my second time in the cave would become not only my first time & one of the many time traveling experience to come but also the day of discovering the land of dragons, where Zigo and 129 other dragons reside peacefully with humans.

To be continued…