Ting * ting* dust and soot on his hands and brow. He worked alone. In the darkness the only light was the specks coming off the rocks from the fire below. His beard long and arms strong. He did this for no-one individual or thing. Simply for the solitude and the riches to bring. His days filled with a cup and a whisper or too. He was the man of solitude. 

Solitude needed rest and needed time even away from the mountain and mind. Slumber was the escape that silanced his heart to wake and dream of a light beyond the dark. Within his dreams the mountain shook leaving solitude to contiplate. The mountain trapped him with the wall and left him to ponder what it wall "it all" 

He was trapped you see, his axe gone trapped like a rat in the darkness. He sat for many hours contiplating the life, the life he made and how there was no life. Staring in the dark for what it seemed was days eating the bread off the fires of his shame. He couldnt dig deeper only wide, if he had his axe was only his mind. 

Staring, staring, staring…

A light was know-where. Yet he could see. Clear as the fires within the caverns and as bright as the love in his dreams. He saw a Boulder the corner stone. The freedom from his prison and light to the no. 

Pulling it he had a shock. The walls crumbled and dropped a world not seen for many a time and a brightness even in a moons eyes. The light was glowing he questioned his being. The dream of his death could it really be free. Walking to see another to ask what it was the people did and loved.. Strangers looked in awe they looked in shock. They could not believe he was bright like the lamps. The light followed and it stuck with solitude and with a firm grip. Solitude captured light within the dark. He found his friend within the dark. It was not a rock the food he ate. Not the fire he hoped to tame. It was the sight, his eyes, he thought. It was the light he captured within the dark. The light was trapped as well unable to move the stone was his. The stone was strong. Solitude only had to free his mind. He had a light and it had him.. The light in the dark his friend to the end.

Thanks all for reading I recently had a refrigerator fall on my hand and my ring had to be cut off. It saved my fingers and I had it reforged and named my ring "solitude" it saved me and I honor my metal as precious and endear it as a brother.