Déjà New (Flash Fiction)

Her hips should fit.

Gladys reached back to wrestle the slim-line water bottle, curved to fit her butt, from its snug neoprene belt. 

"Are you ready to cave crawl?" a face unrecognizable behind a headlamp's glare asked.

"Still thinking."

Is it called thinking when your insides scream in unison?  Or is that just panicking? 

A wave of fear and embarrassment crashed into Gladys. She felt the press of moist, cool rocks tight against her back, her legs and arms flailing uselessly like an upside-down turtle. 

Gladys stepped out of line, leaned against the cool cavern wall, and slowly breathed in the smell of damp clay. 

Where did this fear come from? She wasn’t claustrophobic and her seven-year-old grandson did this crawl with the cub scouts.

Gladys was two weeks away from the hands on the clock turning to seventy. Her life was whooshing by without her.   

"Try new experiences," said her psychiatrist. Maybe ex-psychiatrist.

Drinking from her bottle, she watched the feet of the last woman jerk out of sight into the tunnel. Then she replaced her bottle, knelt and scooted in on her belly.

Cool mud enfolded her. Terror faded as Gladys wiggled into the cool embrace. With elbows and hips, she maneuvered her body. Her headlamp bounced erratically illuminating glimpses of pale rocks overhead.

Confidently digging her elbows into the mud, she pulled. Nothing moved. She tried again, flailing her feet but couldn't find enough purchase to push. A nagging feeling of déjà vu exploded into a memory. 

"Oh God! This isn't even a new experience!" 

Suddenly she was thirteen again. The mean-girl camp leader saying, "You're too fat for the tunnel."

But when camp was asleep, Gladys snuck back to try the tunnel and got stuck. Through her hours of confinement, she had vacillated between terror and calm. A hazy memory caused present-day Gladys to shine her headlamp to the right, where she saw the initials she carved, "J + R." 

Of course it was her crush Roger -- handsome, older camp leader  -- who rescued her. It could have been a romantic ending, his large hands wrapped around hers, nearly effortlessly pulling her wedged body out. But in the hours of panic, she had wet herself. 

No wonder she banished the incident from her mind.

Gladys shuddered the past away. "At least now, I have whiskey." 

Threading her arm behind her she fought a battle dislodging her bottle from the neoprene. Tilting her head back, the fire glided down her throat. She noticed the cap roll down a small mound and as she reached for it, her hips moved forward. 

"The bottle was stuck. Not my hips!”

Whiskey tight in one hand, she dragged her tipsy self out of the tunnel and into the spacious cavern. 

A headlight bobbed close. "Are you enjoying your new experience?"

"It’s nostalgic," Gladys smiled, lifting the bottle to toast her thirteen-year-old self.

Maybe she would look up Roger. That would be a new experience worth trying.