The Tunnel

The trees did not live alone. Within the woods hundreds of breathing stories, kept secret in the shadows, hidden beneath the soil. A refuge for the truth, a shelter for the sinful.

Tate switched on the chainsaw and it rumbled in the cold air. Shouts of men in helmets wearing orange vests echoed through the woods and trees fell. Sweat dripped. The bright sun reflecting off Tate’s visor.

And in the wind and in his head and in his chest he heard Becca as the chainsaw cut through the aching tree. Frustration and fear and fight in her voice tapering to a whimper. Pain worn in the redness on her face. Hope in her sunken eyes and tired from another fight. You need to forget, she’d say. Forget what happened and move on. And she smiled at him and told him to be careful in the mountains and not to be by yourself.

He descended a tree, lit a cigarette, and started to walk and remembered what Becca said about not being alone, but kept walking anyway. Away from the crew, away from the job, away from trees fallen like dead soldiers. Give me a minute. A minute to be alone and let me figure it out and how do I live with the sound of car horns and crashing metal and helpless screams stuck in my head and better still how do I forget and how do I begin again after this year. And he could have walked until he reached the Atlantic but stopped after sucking on a cigarette and came across a tunnel hidden in the underbrush.

Sun’s light consumed by the tunnel. Vines covering the opening. The cigarette disappearing between his fingers as he walked closer.

A force pulling him into the tunnel. Pulling his mind and thoughts buried deep behind the distant screeching chainsaws. Behind the bourbon bouncing in his blood and behind the cancer forming in his lungs and behind his love for Becca and behind reasons he could no longer sleep at night. Let me forget or let me die. And it pulled at him and he couldn’t let him pull him any further. But it pulled harder and his feet sliding on broken leaves.

Thick brush entombed the tunnel. His lighter consumed by darkness. Bright enough to see his feet and the split wood of the train tracks that fed the tunnel. Thick air and a rancid smell and Tate dug his nose into his shirt but it didn’t help. The smell getting closer as he walked and the force of the tunnel pulling him deeper, and as far down as he could see in the tunnel a green light flickered.

His flashlight dying. Been dying all day. When it flicked back on a figure stood motionless in his path.  Not human. A wild dog or wolf or coyote and should he keep going? He took another few steps and waved his arms and moved the flashlight as if to scare the creature but it didn’t move.

Blood spilled on the gravel. A few drops at first, and then more as he walked closer and right up to the creature not moving. Shattered ribs and exposed intestines and blood dripped on hooves and cracked horns. Wide and weary eyes waiting on death. At the mercy of the thick darkness and what it hid.

Thunder crackled in the distance and hard rain pounding outside the tunnel, a gentle whisper crawling on the walls of the tunnel like a wandering spider. And the darkness getting angrier and the air getting thicker and each step meeting resistance but the voice pulling at him to keeping going.

The ram moaning and it’s cries consuming the tunnel. Aching agony of an animal not understanding its own death but coming face to face with death itself. The thick air silencing the ram and darkness moving as if to close its eyes. But eyes looking at Tate and Tate hearing the car horns and the animal rising or descending into another world.

A crack in the cold wind. The ram pulled deeper into the tunnel, it’s entrails dragged and the body disappearing and cries that would turn the most stoic of men into sobbing children. 

Tate fell to the floor. Vomit flowing. Turn back. Turn back now. What lives in these tunnels is not of this world. Hidden in air steeped in ancient anger. A voice filling the tunnel and the moaning of the ram growing distant.

What do you hear when you close your eyes?

The voice carried in the thick air. Filling the tunnel like a horrendous scream, filling your conscience as though consumed with guilt. And Tate closed his eyes but don’t close your eyes because you know what you’ll hear but he closed his eyes anyway. And he heard the car horn and he heard the screeching of his tires and felt his foot stepping on the break but it was too late.

Wouldn’t it be nice to forget? Life is better when we forget pain.

The voice growing louder still and he placed his hands over his ears. The air hot and thick and the smell filling his nostrils and his hands pressed over his ears but the voice now inside his heard like a parasite filling the air. He bent down as though out of breath but he screamed dear God he screamed in agony. Let me forget, please let me forget anything to forget.

The voice of Becca falling in his mind like snow. The sweetness in her voice slicing through his conscience and breaking through the thickness and his heart pumping out the evil and its okay if you can’t forget and he could feel her hand on his forearm when they laid in bed and he could smell her peachy hair as she hugged him and said it’s okay if you can’t sleep and go talk to a therapist.

But he could see too her eyes as they had escorted him away in handcuffs, and he could see her lips mouthing words to him, saying I love you and the sound filling the courtroom even though she didn’t say anything and the feeling that half of him had died during the accident and the other half in the courtroom when strangers decided to lock him away.

Come follow me if you want to forget.

Help me forget what happened on that night and everything else since then. The car hitting the guardrail and the screeching of the tires and the smell of his suit drenched in sweat thick as blood.

I’ve helped kings and queens and saints and sinners and thieves and beggars. They are all the same. Burdened with memories they want to forget. I lived in the woods before you and before them and simply before. And I’ve lived in other places in this world and I’ll continue to live long after your future generations have descended to ash.

Following the green light flickering in the tunnel. Moving his flashlight. The light strong and steady but the tunnel filling with fog and Tate kept walking and stumbling on the broken tracks and broken rails.

Deeper into the tunnel and burrowing himself in the earth and if he screamed or yelled nobody would come for him and nobody would hear him. Like the ram being pulled into darkness he walked. Shutting out the voice of Becca and the voice telling him not to do this.

The green light getting larger. Moving like a mirage in the desert. The light alone and unto itself but calling him and pulling him and begging.

His mouth drying up and his heart thumping and his chest tight. The green light so close, no longer hidden behind the fog. The thick air fallen away, smelling of lavender, of rain drops after a storm. Tate kept walking, his arms outstretched. Reaching and stretching and getting closer.

Through the fog a small pool. The water green and moving. Rose quartz minerals breathing beauty and the pool itself like an entrance to another world.

This is salvation. The salvation of your mind and freedom from your pain. You’ll forget the accident, and you’ll forget other things too, but that’s the sacrifice we make. Come down with us. Here. Come now.

And in prison they said to learn to forgive yourself. Like Franco who taught himself to read and prayed each morning. Would he still have learned to read and pray if he hadn’t been sent away? Forgive yourself. Cheap words uttered by city therapists who never showed up more than twice to the prison and wouldn’t give a shit about you if they met you on the street. Cheap words because they aren’t plagued by the nights where you see the faces of the people you wronged and they are people just like you and me trying to make in life and Dear God what did you do? Cheap words because the sounds plague your mind and beat it senseless until your very being is defined by your own self-inflicted scars. Jump indeed, he thought. Jump and let the water wash over you and start again and Becca will be alright.

Becca will be okay. She’ll be sad at first, but she’ll move on and she’ll realize she’s happier without you. And please don’t worry about the ram. We too need to eat and the ram was just another sacrifice.

The voice like a mother calming a child after a storm. The water shifting. A pool of emeralds. The beauty and the voice calling to him. And Tate telling himself to dive in. Nights filled with sleep instead of dread. Not hearing cell doors moving, of the turning of a key and knowing you can’t leave until you hear that sound again. Jump in

A thousand arms now reaching out of the emerald pool. Like reaching through the porthole of a sinking ship. Grabbing the air and pulling, brittle bones protruding in wrinkled skin. Replaced by another set of hands and arms that wear desperation as skin. Bruised and burned and branded. Reaching Tate’s legs they grabbed him and he fell to the floor and he slid on the gravel and they pulled him in.

The calming voice returning, telling him not to fight it. Let them pull you in. Feel the regret burn away. Yes burn away as all things burn away and you too shall burn away like ash.

Waste deep and grabbing anything he could and his hand landing on a piece of broken train track. But the arms pulled harder and the piece of the track shattered.

Submerging, he felt the world disappear. Pain starting to fall away along with memories. Of the day he first met Becca in high school. The day of the crash and the alcohol he’d had to drink the night before and how when he woke up the police at his door and he had no recollection of anything that had happened and when they told him the crash had killed a pregnant mother.

And of Franco stuttering through a bible verse as he learned to read.  And how that illiterate man told him he needed to forgive himself.

Tate now fully submerged, blinded. He reached out. Reaching out because he wanted to go back to Becca and reaching out because maybe he could forgive himself. Is it too late though? The cool winds of the tunnel on his arm and the gentle breeze on his fingertips and the voices of men yelling for him and calling his name, saying they’d seen him walk off in this direction.

He grasped for what’s above, not knowing but reaching and hoping and kicking his feet but not moving and stretching further until his shoulder burned. Pull me out. Anyone. Don’t you see my hand. Don’t you see me. But the voices softer and softer still and soon their distant echoes retreating in the distance.

For a moment he rested, feeling the numbness in his shoulder. Trying to open his eyes. The feeling of the cell returning. Of those lifeless white walls getting closer each day and the clock moving slower and the clattering of cell locking mechanism getting louder

Tate inhaled. Don’t stop he told himself. He reached out and he could feel the gravel where a few minutes ago he stood where stones circled around the pool.  

Bodies around him and legs kicking and flailing and knocking him deeper into the pool. Kicked and knocked and punched. Feeling as though he were drowning and searching for breath but his head not rising to surface. Kicking hard and fighting with the others, but only feeling their arms and shoulders and the desperation in their movements. Help me get out. I want out.

The head of the ram looking at him. Blackened eyes reflecting and for a moment he could see. The body being pulled and a figure looking down at the pond and the nodding of a faceless figure standing like an accuser.

Let yourself descend. Deep below. There’s no need for pain anymore. No need to overcome. Descend and allow yourself a new beginning devoid of pain and hunger and sadness. In emptiness there is no discomfort.

The voice falling away like melting ice. Tate kicked. Reached and grabbed at empty air. His hands and arms lost in the pool with the others, thousands together climbing over each other, moving nowhere. Alone and going blind and seconds from drowning and the memories a canvas of nothing and his arms flailing. Keep going, he thought to himself. Keep going.