March 13 marks one year since East Chapel Hill High School closed due to COVID-19. This week we’ll post columns from five students reflecting on the past year. This is 1 to 365.
Late one night last April, I found myself watching a YouTube video called “Fear of Depths” by Jacob Geller. As far as video essays go, it’s one of the very best. It tells a couple of interesting stories about the role of the underground in fiction and history, and is overall a very well written and researched piece.
But something about the first section of the video stuck with me long after it ended. Here, Geller tells the story of Floyd Collins, an experienced cave explorer from Kentucky who became trapped in a narrow passage of a cave he owned called Sand Cave. Despite a widely publicized rescue effort, Collins died there after a few days.
I don’t know what it was about that one three-minute segment of that video. Maybe it was Geller’s choice of music, maybe his style of writing, maybe the tone of his voice. I don’t know, but whatever it was, the image of Collins trapped and dying in his own cave will never leave my mind.
Looking back at those early days of the pandemic, I think there was a part of me that was compelled by all the chaos. I mean, it was this huge, totally unexpected breakdown of all the systems we took for granted. Looking at empty aisles in the grocery store or increasingly dire news reports, it seemed almost apocalyptic. It was horrifying, but at the same time, in a twisted sort of way, it was also thrilling.
In the months that followed, though, that thrill slowly faded into a kind of all-consuming mundanity. Days and weeks and months blurred together, stretching and squashing in what seemed like open defiance of the laws of the universe. Before I knew it, summer had come and gone.
In September, at a small gathering of four for a friend’s birthday, we finished our chocolate cupcakes and turned our attention to the woods. We ended up hiking for around an hour, descending a large hill behind my friend’s house and exploring the surrounding area. The cover of night gave the forest an abyssal quality.
That evening was more than a little surreal. In the woods, we found an abandoned swing set, a mangled soccer goal and streaks of glitter smeared on trees. We joked, talked about politics and shared memories from our freshman year, which felt like a lifetime ago.
We made plans to meet again soon, but I don’t think the four of us have been in one place since.
In November, I remember falling asleep three nights in a row staring at that accursed election result map, hoping for some small change in the numbers. At some point in my sleepless delirium, I pointed my phone’s camera at the clock on my dresser and took a series of blurry photos.
Looking back at them now, the vivid orange lines and spirals in those pictures seem to perfectly embody the sense of dread which defined that short period of time for me. It’s bizarre how those four days felt longer than the entire month that led up to them.
Last week, in the final days of February, I took a walk at sunset. I hiked down a short trail and ended up at the back of East Chapel Hill High School. I’d been there a few times in the past year, but seeing it in that light and at that angle, knowing that it had been a full year since I had last been inside, I couldn’t help but feel a profound sadness.
And here, months and months after I first heard of it, the story of Floyd Collins came to my mind again. This year, to me, has been a lot like his Sand Cave. That is to say, how far from the surface am I now?
Will I ever see it again?
