A Tunnel to Nowhere
Short Story
Something is very off today—I could sense it from the moment I woke up—but this, I never could have anticipated.
When I arrived here to my own little place in a park most serene, everything seemed normal, almost dreadfully so, leading me to believe the sensation of oddity I had previously felt was a product of my imagination. It isn’t—my eyes definitely aren’t lying to me, that I am certain of; the usually continuous river stream has ceased to flow from the concrete water tunnel, leaving its inside completely visible. Truly, an anomaly unnoticed by all except me. Then again, I can’t say I am particularly surprised by this, as people have an unfortunate tendency to walk by the most awe-inspiring sceneries without noticing a thing, far too caught up in their dreary existences. Though, I can’t blame them either for I had fallen in that trap before and it left me a hollow shell for a little while. Today’s unnoticed anomaly has altered everything for me; my usual little hiding spot in which I regularly disconnect from the overbearing chaos of the world is different. Stranger. Perhaps even alluring.
I walk to the opening of the concrete tunnel; it emits an air of menace and intrigue, as if the longer your eyes linger on its inside, the more it takes you in. A pungent smell of humidity and fungus floats around me; moss, mushrooms and flowers grow around and inside the tunnel, a phenomenon most peculiar for I saw the tunnel flooded with a violent stream of water and devoid of this greenery no later than yesterday evening. Is it possible for plants to grow this quickly? My eyes keep lingering onto the cold and seemingly infinite tunnel. Without a thought, I step inside; the sound of my boots loudly reverberates through the tunnel. Every single step I take feels like a disturbance to the new world around me; it makes me feel afraid, weary of disturbing the sleeping tunnel; yet due to the sense of wonderment the tunnel has graciously provided me, I continue my walk. A few water puddles remain on the ground, a relic of the tunnel’s past duties contrasting with the greenery that has begun decorating it. Chirps from chickadees take me away from my thoughts; I turn around and see them at the entrance, staring peacefully into the tunnel void, and their enchanting song resounds through the cylindrical concrete. Then, I turn my head back to the tunnel’s cold inside and continue my walk.
…
Deeper and deeper into darkness. The tunnel is quiet; the chirping birds are far behind me; the greenery is no more. I am alone with the tunnel and its echoes. I keep touching my cylindrical surroundings, both to guide me and because I feel compelled to do so; the rugged texture scrapes the tip of my fingers and reassures me. I turn around to see how far away I currently find myself from the entrance; my eyes, having grown accustomed to complete darkness, are blinded by a barely discernible spot of light that grows smaller and fainter with every step I take. I continue my walk for reasons unknown to me; every step feels like walking into a dark and silent void; far from what plagues and shackles me, the dreary monotony of everyday existence; towards something that will save me. Almost like I am being rescued by an unknown entity that offers me a long-awaited escape; an escape from the overwhelming nature of the world, of people, of external expectations. I must admit I feel absolutely nothing, no regret or sadness, leaving a world like that behind.
…
Walking. Still walking. Possibly walking forever. Not that I would mind, on the contrary, I feel alright inside the tunnel; when I talk to it, it emits a vibration beneath my finger tips, as if responding to me. It makes me feel something, a tightening in my heart. The tunnel looms over me, without nefarious intentions, as a benevolent guardian—to be quite frank, I think it wishes to show me something and I want to see whatever that is. I wonder… I ask the tunnel what it wishes to share with me, but this time, it doesn’t respond. I have been in pure darkness for quite some time now; that dim light at the entrance, the last familiar element from the world I left behind, has been extinguished for longer than I can (or care to) remember. Now that I think about it, I haven’t stepped in a puddle for quite some time. Peculiar; I thought, if anything, there would be more water close to what I assume to be the beginning of the tunnel, the source, and yet there doesn’t seem to be any. One thing is certain, though: if water began to course through the tunnel once more, I would be a goner.
What could possibly be at the end of the tunnel? Could it be the source of water that used to be carried by it? Will the tunnel show me why it stopped transporting water? Does it want to show me something else, something kept secret from the world? Have I accidentally entered a portal to another world, another dimension? Or will I come back to the world I ran away from? How dreadful would that outcome be! Perhaps I will walk in the tunnel forever, my concrete surroundings refusing to let go now that they have found a companion in me. I accept whatever outcome the tunnel chooses for me. I glide my fingers against the tunnel’s pleasant inside and continue my walk.
…
I think I eventually collapsed—I woke up on the ground, feeling quite dazed, with my body contorted in a strange way due to my fairly narrow surroundings. The air feels different than it did before; it has a grainy characteristic to it, one that is difficult to describe. I look up and notice a dim light in the distance, thus I get up and calmly walk towards it. I feel no rush to reach it and, quite frankly, I want to prolongate my time with the tunnel. I want to savour it. I instinctively touch the tunnel and feel a very peculiar sensation, that of millions of little empty tingles, as if feeling white noise through my fingertips. I let my fingers gently glide against the concrete; I accept the tingles, I welcome them, I feel them deeply.
As I get closer to the light, the air around me feels more and more disturbed, full of static and idle pulses; what I feel on the surface of my skin is discreetly ticklish, akin to a sound being felt. My body doesn’t know how to react to this sensation and my mind can’t seem to process it. The only feeling I understand right at the moment is that of a disturbing comfort; everything feels uncanny but pleasant. What a strange feeling. The light increasingly blinds me; then, my vision begins to be spattered with millions of tiny dark dots that emerge and disappear in a chaotic manner. My head feels light and my face feels cold, that feeling of nothingness; the static-like sensation that was only around me, then on the surface of my skin, has begun to course through my entire being.
The tunnel whispers to me.
…
Dead silence, exactly what I was searching for—the guardian knew all along. The edge of the world is but bright nothingness. I sit in a small body of water; my surroundings are blissfully peaceful; everything is white noise. It can transcend temporal and spatial planes; the tangible, intangible, and everything in-between.
Is this serenity?
This feeling… It is most unfamiliar to me. It makes me want to cry, but I choose not to. Crying would disrupt the silence and I certainly wouldn’t want that.
How kind the tunnel is to have shown me its hidden treasure. I wonder if I am just another traveler to the concrete guardian or if it purposefully chose me. Did it know I wouldn’t deny, that I would embrace, that I would want to see?
The wonderful thing about questions like these is they need not be answered, especially in a place like this. They just float like everything else. And I float from existence.
Fading away, being forgotten; a velvet melancholy which lulls me; becoming one with white noise.