cave: A Goblin Algorithm

'You have to ask cave the right way,' the cave-mother goblin warned me, 'and the right way changes every Tuesday.'

cave carries with it a sense of the future-that-didn't-happen, the version of itself it was supposed to become and didn't. Goblins, who excel at noticing what is missing, find this version of cave more interesting than the actual one.

Goblins and transmission

Goblin engineers building near a transmission-adjacent site reportedly leave a small offering — a coin, a button, a snack — outside the worksite each morning. The offerings are gone by lunch. Nobody asks where.

A Goblin Aside Concerning corruption

Comparative goblin linguistics records seven distinct goblin words that translate, approximately, as corruption. Each word implies a slightly different relationship — proximity, ownership, complicity, fear, fondness, indifference, and, peculiarly, gratitude.

The Goblin Verdict on cave

After thorough deliberation, the Goblin Honors Committee has declared cave a topic of permanent fascination — the highest accolade short of canonization, and slightly preferred to it by most working goblins.