They say the closer you get to the end of the tunnel the brighter the light will shine, but the light looks so small, I can’t imagine it getting bigger. I run towards it hoping I’m wrong and it will get bigger and bigger, but as I run, the circle of light gets smaller and smaller. I run frantically, maybe if I run faster I can make it through. The cold air feels like it’s cutting into my throat and numbing my nose, my glossy eyes feel like they will freeze. I ignore the fatigue making my legs heavy and the chilly wind slicing into the sensitive openings on my face. The hole looks so small, it’s the size of a dime now. I have to squint to look at it, but as I blink all of a sudden my exit of light has vanished and I smack into a brick wall at the end of the tunnel.
The collision made me fall to the damp and cold concrete ground. The tunnel is so dark, I can’t tell if my eyes are open or closed. Why is it so dark? Shouldn’t there be light from the other side of the tunnel? I frantically try to jog back to the other end of the tunnel, hoping to find another circle of light; but to my great disappointment, I clash into another brick wall. My tunnel that I thought had an entrance and an exit, was now a trapped cylinder. Two brick walls stand in front and behind me. On either side of me is the curved concrete walls of the scheming tunnel. I panic, how do I get out of here? How did this happen? Is it an illusion? Did the walls deceive me into believing there was a way out? I feel all four sides of the walls that surround me looking for a crack or crevice that I can escape through. I get on my hands and knees, feeling the ground. I try to look for a large rock I can throw. I search in the blinding darkness for hours. The small cylinder I am trapped inside is so miniscule that my short arms can spread out and touch both walls at the same time. I can’t find anything, there are no cracks or rocks or secret entrances I can escape through.
I don’t know how long it’s been, time feels non existent in my dark prison. The walls mock me, they never answer my questions, yet when I try to sleep I hear their faint whispers. They whisper mysterious riddles. I think they are just taunting me, I know they know a way out. Why won’t they talk to me? I’ve been here for so long I’ve started to feel comfortable. In my cage of concrete, my only hobby is counting all 51 bricks on each wall. My hobby entertained me at first, but now it’s a ritual I perform to keep my sanity. The coldness that rattles my bones no longer bothers me. The mysterious riddles the walls speak at night no longer scare me. The darkness is so comfortable that the light outside no longer seems appetizing. I’m used to being here, it feels like I’ve always lived here. My conception and eventual end have all taken place here in my cold, dark cylinder. Why would I want to leave when it’s the only thing I know. I only know the feeling of sleeping on this cold slippery pavement, I only know these walls and their malicious intent.
I don’t want to leave this place. I’ve been encased in the dark so long that if I left now the light would blind my unprepared eyes. That light seems dangerous, I think my frail body would deteriorate in the sun. My skin would crisp and harden. The soft and bloody innards of my body would char. I’d fall to ash and be blown away by the wind. I’m afraid of what that light will do to me. I’ll just stay here. I know I’ll be safe, I’m very familiar with this place. If this is the only place I know, that means I’m comfortable and if I’m comfortable that means I’m happy, right? I’m comfortable, so I’m happy, right? I’m comfortable, right? I’m happy, right? The walls don’t answer me, they never have. They just stand there, frigid and firm. Their silence impales my ears, I just want to scream, but I can’t. My screams would just echo back into my mind and bounce around the inside of my skull. Why? Why don’t the walls answer me? Maybe they are mad at me, maybe they hate that I’m here. Maybe they didn’t mean to entrap me and now they are annoyed that their sacred cylinder is crowded by a human that is not wanted. Maybe the walls don’t like being in the darkness. Maybe they are craving the light, but they don’t know how to get to the entrance.
If I find a way for the walls to get to the light, then they might talk to me, but I don’t want to find the light. Why do I even care if they talk to me? Why do I care if they want to see the light? “You care only because you wish to see the light,’’ the wall finally answers me. “I do not wish to see the light” I respond. “You do wish to see it, you only care for us because you see a reason in us,” the wall continued. “I do not, the light scares me”, I say. “ That is a fallacy, you do wish to be embraced by the light. You are only scared that if you leave this cylinder there won’t actually be a light; You’re afraid that the light wont encapsulate you like it does for everyone else,” said the wall. "Even if I did want to leave, how am I supposed to, I can’t just tear you down. You’re talking, that means you are alive, I can not destroy a living thing”, I retort. “You can tear me down, one brick at a time. I am not here. Reach the light, let the light heal the body that has been trapped in the darkness for so long”.
I stare into the darkness, the energy in my chest shoots through me like a beam of adrenalin. The same adrenalin I had when I was trying to run out of the tunnel that I was lost in as a child and never left. I ball my fist and smash my hand into the wall. I do it again and again. The skin around my knuckles tears to pieces, the bone beneath is shattered like glass, the bloody flesh and muscles have worked their way into the bone shards creating minced meat. I claw and scratch at the bloody brick in the wall sitting before me. My nails are ripped from the skin that once held them in place. The bones in my wrists and hands are destroyed, but I keep going, I won’t stop until I see the light. I will break and tear every bone and muscle in my body until I get out of the darkness and reach my circle of light again. It doesn’t matter how long I’ve spent in this tunnel, all that matters is that I save myself from my entrapment. The brick in front of me is slathered in blood and shards of skin, but then it snaps in half. The brick cracks down the middle. I push on its center as it slides out of the wall and falls onto the ground outside. The light creeps in only a little through the small entrance of that one destroyed and soaking wet brick. One down, 50 more to go.
