In the silence of the deep cave, those marks are the closest thing to a signature.

Not a name.

Not a language.

Not an account of why he was there.

Just the shadow of a flame that he carried, left on stone that has preserved it for nearly nine thousand years.

Science made that flame’s existence visible.

It could not make the flame speak.

It cannot answer the question of what the man was thinking when he passed that wall, carrying his light, moving deeper into the mountain.