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The Light at the End of the Tunnel
Colm wakes up in a coal mine, coughs the dust and slime out of his lungs, stretches painfully
then looks around for a light at the end of the tunnel. As usual he can’t see any, which disheartens him
for a moment. Nonetheless, eyes inured to the dark he picks up the rucksack which has served as pillow,
lugs it onto his back and sets off on his quest.
He wears a soft cotton one-piece suit, presumably black. He certainly cannot imagine himself donning another colour.
It has aged since he’s seen himself, but he somehow reckons his face has been preserved by its lack of exposure to daylight.
At times he truly believes himself to be pure, other times he’s convinced of damnation.
Bravely he plunges onward through the darkness. There is a slight incline in today’s path, upwards,
fortuitously, for going down could never bring him to the light, apart from the unlikely event of his somehow
reaching the earth’s smouldering core.
His sense of touch has long been heightened; brushing his hand against the fuliginous pit walls he believes
the dry texture can guide him towards his goal and that stodgier clay-lumps indicate a hopeless path. In the course
of his walking he thus switches direction half a dozen times at least. Smell is also significant: nostril-stinging
acridity or wheeze-inducing damp is certain to affect an abrupt change in course.
He is by nature claustrophobic. Those tunnels that start gently shrinking give him nightmares.
He is never sure that they are actually getting smaller until his neck aches; for a while he continues in denial
retracing your steps is tantamount to admitting defeat, to time your enemy then the moment is upon
him where he is all bunched up, wondering if the next step will see him irrefutably stuck… oh he loves the open caverns,
tripping over dinosaur bones as he goes, the gurgle of water in his ears, the tenebrific vistas perceptibly wide-open.
Animals bring luck. If he senses an animal, even a rat, nearby, a spring comes to his step and he begins to whistle.
Today, after what could have been several hours tramping or, then again five minutes, he stumbles across a pair of tracks.
Such encounters are painful as they are rare, and always welcome: rails are handy to follow, and presumably start and finish at
points outside his own mind hence denoting an often doubted external reality. Alas several previous pursuits of a railway’s
course seemed to disprove this notion as they ended quite abruptly, dumbfounding him. Nonetheless, the solidity of the metal he
now rubs banishes such negative thinking.
Without losing any time he positions his gangly legs between the tracks and stamps earnestly forth.
No longer obliged to plot a course, the tracks being his navigator, he descends into the balm of a pleasant day-dream.
- AAAARGH!
Even full alertness would not have saved him from falling face first onto the grime-laden plank obstructing the tracks.
He curses and attempts to push it away. It is then he discovers the wheels.
The plank is in fact a trolley that readily moves with a press of his toes into the ground. Oh such well oiled wheels!
This is surely the breakthrough he’s been awaiting his body fits perfectly onto the sturdy wood; like a swimmer he can push
the contraption along with his feet or his hands. Without further ado he thrusts himself along. It moves fast.
He recalls the goggles in his rucksack and the small cap; he reaches behind and fits them on. He soon finds a rhythm,
pressing his cheek against the wood he becomes an aero-dynamic machine. The power lends him such confidence that his
astonishment at spotting a grey unarguable speck of light in the distance is tempered by calm acceptance of destiny.
Focussing on this point, he toboggans forward.
It is not long before the light at the end of the tunnel becomes a cream tympanum. There is a melancholy quality to its roundness.
Nostalgia for the prison he is about to escape enters Colm’s heart. Reaching a crest he perceives the light to be in fact below him.
All those years, decades even wasted harbouring the false believe that the mine was underground when in fact it had obviously been
dug into the side of a mountain. What matter: the ordeal is about to end.
It will be a steep descent. Readying himself for the final push, he stretches out his arms and catches a glimpse of his hands
for the first time in years: the skin is raw and calloused, the nails looped. One of his fingers has been eaten away. He recoils
in disgust and wonders how he’ll fare in the outside world. Maybe, he muses bitterly, they’ll send me right back.
He allows himself a solemn moment of silence to honour the depths of despair he has experienced along the way, and of course
the lessons hard-learned which he will always carry with him.
The vehicle rattles along reaching a breakneck speed. Getting closer, the circle before him takes up fulgurating like a full moon
battling clouds… and winning. His mind is awash in rapture. The light intensifies into a blinding onslaught.
Tears of glee vaporise on his eyelids as he transmutes into a projectile thundering towards freedom.
Hitting the wall of light his brain smashes into smithereens. Fragments of mind glide sizzling back up the tunnel.
On landing they cause the stygian arena to flicker for an instant before darkness re-conquers and night moves in to devour
the carcasses of thought.
Aongus Murtagh
is an Irish writer living in Berlin, Germany.
Email: Aongus Murtagh
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