The first time I laid my Irish eyes upon Plato’s Cave, I was half starved, the bullet wound in my leg was infected and everything was seen through the orange haze of pain. I remembered they carried me through the entry tunnels on a gurney; it must have been one of theirs because we didn’t have any left in the caravan. Everything else is lost to the clouds of pain and the lost memories have been replaced by the thousands of times I have walked through the welcoming entrance to Plato’s Cave since that day.
It is a sight to behold. A fortified castle on the coast of the Aegean Sea, near what used to be Thessaloniki, in the shadow of Mount Olympus. I have been told my eyes are the color of the Aegean Sea but I do not believe it. The Aegean Sea has not one color; it has every color. White sun sparkles off a blue sea reflected in a blue sky reflected in a blue sea in a continuous circling dance of the gods.
Slate grey waves crash upon yellowed stones during storms that once pushed Odysseus past these shores. Dolphins splash in the green azure of its tepid waters. During the gloaming it is the color of dark wine, spilt by careless gods. During the algae blooms the sea turns red and against the pink clouds of a setting sun it looks like the inside of a fig, freshly picked off a fig tree.
But that is now. When I first arrived at Plato’s Cave, the Aegean Sea, like the entire world during the Slicer Wars, had no color. All we had was pain and fear and death.
As I write this, fear pounds against the walls I have built to hold back the memories of those days. I want to record them, to tell you, my children, what we have done, what it was like during the Slicer Wars, but I fear you will condemn us for our mistakes. I fear that you will read these words and think of all the things you would have done differently, knowing what you now know.
You know the facts of how the Slicers were created, how they killed so many, how humans and animals barely survived. You read the facts and will not hear our confusion, our fears, our intentions.
Do not be deceived by the words, by the facts. They hold little meaning in and of themselves. The meaning comes when you turn away from the facts, when you turn away from the shadows against the wall and see the things that cast the shadows.
The fears I face now, though, are translucent apparitions compared to those liquid metal fears I faced in my youth. My fears today are like the sounds of bat wings in the corners of my mind, whispered reminders of my failures and follies. The sounds of the Slicer’s wings, though, even today the memory of that sound fills me with terror that crushes my lungs and dulls my eyesight. Those sounds whir in my ears, those fears pound in my head, but for you, my children, I will once again confront my fears so you can hear the words and learn the meaning behind them. Beware, though. Do not write the words on your hearts, my children. The words themselves are illusions. Their meaning is reality.