The Tunnel (Tunnel in Fiction, Tunnel in Dreams)
She walked along the track. There was just enough light to see her path. She couldn’t see very far ahead. This was bad. Light and fresh air was a long distance away. Walking wasn’t the difficult part. The surroundings were. It was dark, damp, and creepy. Like her nightmare come true. What awaits her if she reaches the end of this concrete tube? She had no indication. However, her gut feeling told her it will be very different.
She had time to concentrate on her thoughts. Bereft of additional external stimulation, she had nothing much to occupy her mind. Naturally, she thought of her problems. This tunnel corresponded to her intrapersonal journey as she battled her fears. Her psychological fears. Her imagination.
She forced herself to take deep breaths. This wasn’t as bad as her first tunnel. It was far more narrower, flooded and treacherous to travel through. When she described this journey, her listeners were incredulous. No way you could have remembered, they said. Their eyes screamed “Fake, Fake,” at her. She stopped talking about her memory. She ignored it until it became an elephant in her room called the Brain. That suppressed memory struggled free in her sleep. Its image roared as the flooded tunnel resounded with echoes of her futile splashes to swim upstream. Later, she learned her mother hated her for giving her a lengthy labor.
It is always better to be outside a tunnel than inside. She soldiered on.
Photo writing prompt – pic of tunnel.
