Plato’s Cave (Part II):Fear of the light by João Coelho
The grey dawn heralded the rain that the fishermen had been waiting for. They say that the murkier the seawater is from the sediments brought by the nearby river, the better it is for the fish. The tide had already begun to rise, slowly overtaking the sand with small waves that grew bolder and bolder. Before dying out with a final sigh, the waves gently circle the hull of the last of the two old ships that came here to die, as if not wanting to wake them from their eternal slumber.
Rust and barnacles have overtaken nearly the entire hull of this little giant, which lies tilted as if having already accepted its death sentence. Despite its moribund state, it exudes a certain dignity and haughtiness as it dominates the flat, lifeless landscape. Its companion, which shared the beach with it for over two months, has already been torn apart by the fury of the blowtorches, leaving only its iron skeleton to be sold. Only a few scattered pieces remain on the beach, like memories of a carnage awaiting the arrival of the last scavengers.
Gradually, the hustle and bustle of the fishermen preparing for their first catch of the day begins to take over the beach. A flock of hungry herons follows closely behind, flying in circles and letting out shrill cries. Life slowly resumes on the beach.
Though invisible and silent as the night, life never ceased to exist here. In the dark, damp holds of this old ship is a gloomy world where men of flesh and blood are kept chained. These men know only the shadows of objects and the sounds that come from outside, which seem to be the voices of those shadows. They worked in the dark, damp holds of the smaller ship for more than two weeks until other prisoners took their place and tore down its iron walls with blowtorches. Now, they are chained up again in Plato's cave on the last ship on the beach.
Some of them never leave the cave. The light of the outside world hurts their eyes, so they sleep in the ship's holds until the sounds of life returning to the beach wake them. Others are held back by the distance between the beach and the homes they lived in before being imprisoned here. Returning home for the night would cost them all the money they would earn after three weeks of hard work removing wood shavings and insulating foam from the holds of this dying ship.
The days all blend together in this cave. They work for hours on end in the bowels of this iron monster, where the strong smell of naphtha mixes with the thick, suffocating heat. After tossing pieces of wood torn from the holds' walls overboard, they dangerously jump from the ship's railings into the sea to retrieve them and bring them to the beach. These dives are always dangerous because the shallow waters of this beach are littered with rusty metal debris from other ships that have met their end here. They must enter the water at specific points and time their dives so that they can take advantage of the height of the water as the waves pass under the ship.
However, they must still take other risks to get back on the ship. This time, they must fight the waves and climb up old ropes to the deck using only their arms. The waves could easily throw them against the rusty, barnacle-covered hull. In this working environment, an open wound inevitably leads to a serious infection with a high probability of gangrene.
At the end of the day, they gather on the deck, quench their thirst, and smoke a cigarette before seeking shelter from the nighttime cold. Their countless trips back and forth to the beach to collect wood have made the light hurt their eyes, so they cannot see well. Despite having seen the real present, they still believe the images they saw in the cave were real. They decide to return to the dark, gloomy holds to spend the night.
But one of them, after being forced to look at the fire and the objects that cast shadows in the cave (a new reality, a new knowledge), was freed. Having become accustomed to the light, his eyes were now blinded by the darkness, just as they had been by the light. He told his companions that their situation was extremely deceptive, but they concluded that leaving the cave had seriously harmed one of them and therefore decided never to leave. As they close the door to the dark, stuffy cellars behind them, they see their freed companion take one last dive towards the light and leave the cave for good.
The sound of the freed prisoner hitting the water was the last thing heard in the cave. A deathly silence once again descended on the ship, ready to be conquered by the darkness of night once more. On the bridge, an imaginary captain watched the fugitive from the cave join the last of the fishermen leaving the beach. He doesn't look back; he simply walks resolutely towards the light.
