The Tunnel

Her scuffed-up skater shoes tapped delicately through the streets of her neighborhood. Tulips and orchids, pink and orange lined the yards of the quaint houses. She walked from Maple Street to Smith Avenue, then crossed the main road to reach the lake at the center of her community. She liked to stop and take a breath, feel the wind on her skin, and hear the sounds of the birds calling and the water washing over the rocks. She’d pick one up, make a wish and throw it as far as she could, which was not very far. She thought, when she’d return the next day, she could throw it a bit farther. On her way back home, a car horn beeped; a man called out the window to her but kept on driving. She shook her head, annoyed but not perturbed, because, in a way, it felt like a compliment. A nasty compliment, but nonetheless, a compliment.

She had gone out walking every day since the start of spring, slowly shedding layers of clothing as her confidence grew. She started with a stroll, moved to a brisk walk, and now, she struts.

Soon, it would be autumn, and too cold to walk the streets. She silently feared not being able to shed any more of herself. One day, she took a longer way home, wanting to get a couple thousand more steps in. On the border between her town and the next, she discovered the entryway to an unlit, black as night tunnel. Though it was dark and had no end in sight, she was magnetized by it. A chill ran down her neck, possibly from fear or from excitement. Or, possibly it was the first wind of the new season catching up to her.

When, in a few weeks, the cold got too much for her less cushioned body, she decided it was time not to stop walking, but to start walking through the tunnel. She put on her new pair of walking shoes, grabbed her flashlight, and started toward the tunnel.

The endlessness, to her, wasn’t scary; it was mystifying. It was exhilarating - not knowing how far she could go - knowing that she could go and keep going until she decided to stop. She was encased in the concrete walls which isolated her from her community on the other side. And though she missed the houses, and the tulips, the lake, and the rocks, she quickly found comfort in the lonesome gray, and rectitude in her plot.

Her father, who always was vigilant, had warned her that the tunnel could be dangerous. He didn't like the idea of her being alone in there. He liked less the idea of her not being alone in there. Despite his fears, he had applauded her consistency. He told her he was proud of her will to be better. He was proud that she had taken her ambition into her own hands and done what she had always wanted to do. Her mother, too, had warned her but also wore her envy across her face. Like her daughter, mother always wanted to be thin.

The young woman started every day at the tunnel at her usual time - the break of dawn. At first, she would walk for an hour or so, then turn around and come back. She would go home, look in the mirror, and smile. She would bend down, not feel her rolls meet one another, and smile. She would lie down, notice the emptiness in her stomach, and smile.

Then, she got bored. Outside of the tunnel, she felt as though she were wasting her time.

Each day, she walked a little more into the tunnel. She ached to know how far it could go. When she would come home, she would draw pictures of the tunnel, write songs about the tunnel, dream about the tunnel, and do nothing, but think about and yearn for the tunnel.

At night, she began to sneak out and walk a few more hours through the tunnel. And while she walked, she would only think about two things: her body and the tunnel’s end. She viscerally needed to see what was at the end. She needed to see herself at the end.

She was high on her own lonesomeness. She wanted to be the only one to reach the end. It would show that she could go farther than anyone else.

She believed it was still Tuesday, but she didn’t know what time it was or how long she had been walking; it was always dark in the tunnel. She figured she'd been inside long enough. She must be close now. How much farther could it really go? How much farther could she really go?

An echo startled her. A growl. Could it be her stomach? She wondered. Though she was tired, and aching, and hungry, and though the blisters on her ankles had bled through her white socks and stained her worn-in walking shoes, she kept going.

As she got nearer - to what, exactly, isn't known - the growls intensified. She ventured closer toward them, enraged at the idea that someone made it further than she had. Her fury prevailed over her fatigue. She kept on going, holding her flashlight shakily out in front of her, trying to keep her eyelids open.

Finally - she noticed a spot of light floating in front of her; the refraction from her flashlight. For a moment, she was numb. She had reached it. The end. Then, a wave of accomplishment washed over her, as she collapsed to the cold, gray, concrete floor with a smile on her face; a mere 20 feet from the tunnel’s end. There, once again, a jarring growl filled the space and echoed off the concrete walls. And then, a pained moan.

She forced her eyelids open and lazily pointed the light around her. Until she saw it. A pale, shivering, emaciated figure, curled up into a ball of skin on the floor. The woman wasn’t even alert enough to feel afraid. Instead, she watched in awe, as the figure writhed. Bones pressing deeply against the insides of its skin. Long, stringy hair stuck against its back, slick with sweat. The woman, who could hardly feel a thing anymore, still felt jealousy.

She watched the figure with a burning envy inside of her, begging to escape.

“Hello?” the woman whispered with the last bit of her strength.

The figure, in agony, turned over and stared deeply inside the woman. The two figures mirrored each other.

The woman marveled at her own hollow, beautiful face staring back at her.