tunnel

story about two kids.

Two children walk along mossy green train tracks, wandering down a dripping tunnel, long forgotten. Small white mushrooms and lichen creep over the overgrown rails and thick, twisted tree roots snare the rotted wooden slats. The pair are silent and delirious with each other. Each drives the other into a small corner of non-sanity. They both have smoked before, sometimes with each other, but this high of being together is different. It pushes them apart into separate drawers of the universe, tucked away beside dusty spools of thread and old greeting cards. Sometimes one will hear a knocking and she will know it’s him, in the drawer underneath or above or to the left or the right, tapping that she's not alone. And sometimes she responds and sometimes she pulls her knees to her chest and breathes in the thick dust, losing herself to the choking quiet and dimness. When this happens, he will frown and want to understand, but he knows himself and he knows he couldn’t hold what she holds. He will unwind a bit of the dusty thread and wrap it around his fingers until they turn white; he will glance through the greeting cards and scoff at the love scratched into them. Most of all he will think about her. He will brush the soft, worn paper with his knuckles and pretend it’s her feathery hair, or rest his cheek against the old spool of thread as if it’s her chest. He will wish for the times when, after a long moment of almost-disappointment, he heard a quick knock on the other side of the wood. He would creep over to whichever wall they shared and lean into it, imagining that she is doing the same on the other side. And then they would talk about everything, tearing into their anger and fear and hurt, laughing so hard he could only shake silently on the ground and she would howl like an animal, peering down each other’s glistening throats. The talking would reach a point that felt like a low ache in the bottom of his stomach, drilling down into the depths of his fear of her. It always went like this--the question he needed the answer to would be on the tip of his tongue, the burden that buckled his knees would be resting in the palm of his hand ready to be offered up, the secret that fluttered in his chest would fly up into his throat. But then inexplicably he would realize it had been a while since she last said anything and his voice would wither and his mind would painfully clear and the spell would be broken. The question on his tongue would melt away, his hand would jerk back and quietly slip something heavy back into his pocket, his throat would close on the secret and he would cough it back down into his stomach. “It’s over, you felt it too” she'd say through the wall. “Yes,” he'd answer, “we’ve left the drawers.” And they would crawl off the cold floor and into their beds, each alone in their dusty drawer.

He is pulled out of his thoughts by a long train whistle. A breeze blows down the tunnel and lifts their hair, filling their shirts like sails. The hairs on his neck stand up. These tracks have been abandoned and overgrown for years, but something is coming to retake what the dirt first stole back. He grabs her hand and holds it tight, “Come on,” he says, trying to pull her down from the tracks. Her eyes are big and mirror-like, frozen on the oncoming-train. He is frightened now. “Please,” he screams, but she's always been the stronger of them. The rails hum deafeningly and a bright light blinds him as the train bears down on them. She shoves him off the tracks and he throws his arms up in front of his face. As the train screams past, the wind whips up his hair and flattens him against the tunnel wall. He turns and looks just in time to see her standing there, facing down the train. She doesn't even look back at him before it slams into her and barrels on down the tunnel. He is still shivering against the wall long after the last car has past.