ARA4.TXT, Torus Cave, copywright 1991, 1995 by Dave Byter, proliferate freely.

So there I was at the bottom of Ack's Shack stuck with Peggy.  I had three
choices.  I could crawl back thru the Ack's Shack Crawl, I could free climb the
lower pit and stand there until Brian managed to make his newfangled rope
climbers work, or I could listen to Peggy.

Somehow she was talking about getting into a crawl that was in a big circle,
and was downhill all the way.  I think that it must have been exhaustion, but
it didn't make any sense to me.  "Look, imagine crawling downstream in the
Ack's Shack Crawl.  Except that when you get finished, you are right back where
you began."

"That's easy," I said.  "That's exactly what we did.  I was sitting right here
ten hours ago waiting for Chris to finish the crawl.  I was sitting on the same
rock as you are sitting on now, as a matter of fact.  I really don't remember
which way the stream was flowing, but I'm willing to believe it was running the
same way then as it is now.  The ripplemarks and the scallops both point in."

"No, you fool!" Well, that's not exactly what she said, but it is close enuf.
There are some things that are said in caves that aren't be repeated in the
real world.  Peggy was real good at using those sorts of words.  There was
probably some interesting story about growing up as the daughter of a sea cook
or somesuch, but I never did hear of it.

"Imagine that when you got out the other end of the crawl, that you were
entering the beginning of the crawl.  Like if you make a pipe that looks like
the Ack's Shack crawl and then just grab the ends of the pipe and stick them
together.  With the caver inside, and smear a little mud over the seam so he
doesn't see it."

I thought about it.  I still didn't see any difference.  "So how is that
different from what we just did?  I mean, instead of finding the same crawl, we
found another cave.  When you go down the Ack's Shack Crawl, you really don't
know that it will take you to McPhail's Cave.  All you got is somebody's word
about it.  And when the noise stops coming out of the hole, it's your turn to
do it.  For all you know, there might be white rabbits and mad hatters on the
other side." I mean, it is true that despite all the stories, maps, pictures or
whatever, you can't (not don't) know for sure what is where you ain't been.

Peggy was really steaming, and not just from a trip through Ack's Shack Crawl.
All the magic words on, in, or under Earth couldn't make Brian's new ascenders
ascend.  Peggy couldn't go up and stand with Brian, or she would be standing on
the rope so that he couldn't climb.  And I didn't think that she was too
interested in doing a 115 foot bellycrawl just to keep from having to sit with
me.

I was wrong.  "Look at this crawl!" she yelled as she dove into it.  I
couldn't.  She filled it, but I got the idea, I think.  "Imagine that when I
come out the other end of the crawl, that I am just like I am now." OK, that
wasn't hard.  Covered with mud and surrounded by a cloud of steam.  It fitted
her personality quite well.  "Now, when I crawl thru the crawl, when I get to
the other side, then I have two choices.  I can turn around and go back the way
I came, or I continue on to The Siphon, right?"

"No.  Not right.  You have two choices, you can go to The Siphon, or you can go
right.  If you go right, that takes you upstream to the original McPhail's
entrance where Professor McPhail tried to climb out hand over hand.  The only
way that you could go right and go to The Siphon is to be crawling on your
back."

"Or backwards, but that's not what I mean.  You are right, left is right and
right is wrong.  But what I meant was that your two choices are to either
continue into the cave or turn around and go back.  Going to The Siphon and
going to McPhail's Hole are the same choice, the other choice is to turn around
and go back thru the Ack's Shack Crawl."

I thought that this should only be counted as one choice, since you gotta go
back thru the Ack's Shack Crawl no matter what.  The only choice is do you want
to see the rest of the cave, or is a 70 foot pit, a 30 foot pit, and a 115 foot
bellycrawl sufficient.

"Exactly what I meant," she said.

"What did I say," said I.

"That the two choices that you would have at the other end of the crawl would
be to continue on into the cave and then turn around and come back, or to turn
around and go back right then.  Imagine that your two choices were to do the
crawl again the same way, or to turn around and come back."

Now she was beginning to make some sense.  I could imagine that the other end
of the crawl was just like this one.  I had been a lot of places like that.
The ones where you had a choice about turning around and coming back were a lot
better than the ones where the choices were not turning around and coming back
backwards, or crawling forwards into a hole that was going downhill and was too
small to turn around in.

"Isn't it a bit uncomfortable with your head stuck down that hole?" I asked.
And I wasn't really used to being lectured by only the ass half, even if it
were Peggy.  We had had some rather strange times together, and I wasn't too
surprised anymore by what she said, or what she did while she was saying it.
Free speech and all that sort of stuff.

Peggy backed out of the crawl and returned to her rock.  I wasn't sure which
way that she looked better, and decided that perhaps the decision was to decide
which way she looked less worse.  She was still spouting nonsense.  "Imagine
that I crawled thru the crawl, and as I came out the other end of the crawl
that I was just starting into this end of the crawl, just like I was a minute
ago."

"That's impossible.  You can't be exiting and entering at the same time."

"I beg to differ.  You do it all the time.  As soon as Brian manages to make
his quick ascenders ascend, he will exit the entrance.  If you don't believe
that you can exit the entrance, then you can sit here until you do believe so.
Reality doesn't give a <sexist expletive deleted> what you believe." Arguing
with Peggy was like trying to straighten your tie in a funhouse mirror.

Something is wrong, but you don't know quite how it happens.  "Now think like a
cave.  Just take the far end of the Ack's Shack Crawl and bring it around to
this end and plug it in.  Like you were making a hula hoop from a piece of
plastic pipe." Now she was giving specific instructions, even if they were
impossible.

"That's impossible," said I.

"Why," said she.  We seemed to have reached an impasse.  "There are people who
honestly believe that there are devils in the caves who can do all sorts of
magic things.  If those devils can stoke a furnace with sinners to make a
volcano, they can surely stick one end of a cave into the other."

I didn't believe in devils and gods and such, but they were sometimes handy to
explain something.  I could envision some superior being grabbing a cave and
plugging one end into the other.  I could even envision that some people could
even envision some inferior being doing it with a sinner inside.

"Now imagine the Ack's Shack Crawl with that end plugged into this end.  If you
were crawling inside, you would never know when you got to the other end to
turn around and come back.  Besides being my idea of Hell, it illustrates my
example of being trapped in a vicious torus."

Now I was confused again.  "It seems to me that if you were crawling around
inside of a vicious taurus, that you would get covered with bullshit.  I mean,
the other kind of bullshit than you are feeding me now." Trying to understand
Peggy was like trying to catch eels with you bare hands.  You couldn't hold
onto her ideas, and when you could, you got bit.

"You stupid donkey!" That's not exactly what she said, but it is close enuf.
There are some things said inside of caves that shouldn't be said outside of
caves.  I think that I have said that before, but if I have, then just think of
that as the same as this and plug it in.  "I mean a torus.  A donut.  A hula
hoop.  The only way your taurus could be like my torus is to have his head up
his donkey, which you seem to be able to do." With that kind word, Peggy
prussiked up the rope, and soon called for me to follow.

I was quite relieved to find that the real world was just as we had left it
before we had descended into Ack's Shack.  I would have been a bit concerned
if, after I had climbed out of Ack's Shack, that I were still in the cave.  I
could think like a cave, but that was too much.

A few days later I was eating dinner at Tiny's and he showed me some drawings
by the Dutch artist Maurits Cornelis Escher.  After I had looked at "Waterfall"
and "Ascending and Descending", I understood Peggy perfectly.  It really is
possible to get oneself into a situation where it is downhill all the way.  My
mother called these situations vicious circles, tho Ben hand a better name,
positive feedback loops.

Whatever, the notion of crawling in a torus downhill all the way stuck with
me.  There were even a few times that I thought that maybe I had been trapped
in such a situation, but I managed to back out of it alive.  Crawling in caves
leads one to think like a cave.