The Tunnel
The man awoke in a small room, no bigger than five feet by five feet. He had no idea where he was, or how he got into this small room. His eyes focused and he noticed that the room he was lying in had one opening shaped like a door. The world beyond this opening did not have a floor, but what appeared to be a churning mass of molten metal. The peculiar thing about this world beyond the opening was that this red-orange substance seemed to form a tunnel going for as far as the eye could see. Being a college physics professor, the man inquired that if the substance he saw was indeed a liquid, it was impossible for it to be forming a tunnel. To test to see if the substance was indeed a liquid, the man removed his right shoe and cautiously inched toward the rectangular opening. As he came closer to the opening, he noticed something else: in the middle of the opening, there was a gray beam, no wider than three inches, which moved down the center of this long tunnel. Noting this, the man tossed his shoe into the red-orange substance. His shoe seeped into the substance, and then seemed to explode in a burst of flames. This proved that two things: the substance was indeed a liquid; and the substance was very hot. This new discovery baffled the man. No substance he had ever encountered or studied had these qualities. However, the man decided not to dwell on the fact that what he was seeing was impossible, but on the fact that he needed to find a way out of this place. He searched the twenty-five square foot room for any other ways of escape, and found none. The room appeared to be made of very thick concrete. Also, this room was extremely hot in temperature. The room had no vent other than the opening and this caused the room to be extremely stuffy and hot. After searching the room for a couple minutes longer, the man began to feel light headed. He came to the conclusion that he would have to traverse the narrow beam if he wanted to have any chance of survival. The man approached the beam and looked down the tunnel to see if the beam had an end. Both the tunnel and the beam appeared to stretch on forever . “Well,” the man said, “if I am ever going to make it out of here, I might as well try to find an ending to this tunnel.” The man stepped onto the beam with his right foot and let out a loud scream. The beam was very, very hot. He stumbled backwards and nearly lost his balance. The beam burned a hole through his sock and gave him a nasty burn across the sole of his foot. The beam burning the man’s foot proved another thing: the beam was made of a type of conductor of heat. What conductor it was the man did not know. No material he knew of could withstand this amount of heat without melting. The man came to the conclusion that he would have to wrap his feet with some material to keep them from being burned. Luckily, the man happened to be wearing jeans, and the man knew that jeans are very durable and can withstand a lot of stress. However, he decided that he would have to put something behind the jeans, for jeans, although durable, did not last forever. He removed his shirt and then came to the realization that he would need to protect both feet. He would be able to tear the shirt in half, but the jeans were another story. There was no way he would be able to rip the jeans in half, or at all for that matter. He decided to worry about the jeans after he had the shirt taken care of. He ripped the shirt in half lengthwise down the middle. He bent over to fasten the shirt to his feet, but while bending down he felt a bulge in his back pocket. He stood up and put his hand into his pocket. Inside was a pocketknife. He did not ever carry a pocketknife. And even if he did carry a pocketknife, he would not put it in his back pocket because he would be afraid that he might poke himself in the butt with it. Someone had put the pocketknife there. He took the pocketknife from his pocket and opened up the knife tool. With some struggle, he slowly began to cut the pant legs away from each other. After what he would say about five minutes, he finished cutting the jeans. Taking his shoelace from his left shoe, he cut the lace in half and fastened the shirt along with the jeans to both of his feet. Since the laces were gone from his left shoe, he was able to slip in his foot along with the makeshift covering. Now that his feet were protected, he began to approach the beam for the second time. He took a deep breath and stepped onto the bean with his left foot. There was no pain this time. He shuffled his left foot forward and then stepped with his right foot onto the beam. Suddenly a loud bang erupted behind him and the man nearly lost his balance. He glanced back to see that the opening was no longer an opening but a closed door. It appeared that a sliding metal door had closed the opening as soon as the man set both feet on the beam. The door looked very sturdy and did not look like it was going to open back up. The man did not bother to attempt to open up the door. He continued on his way down the beam. Until now the man had not realized that he would have to balance all the way down the seemingly endless tunnel. He shuffled his left foot forward again, and then moved his right foot forward once more. Ten minutes elapsed and the man only moved fifteen feet forward. “This is like shuffling down the devil’s rectum,” said the man. And when one comes to think of it, in a metaphorical sense, that description was not too far from the truth. The man continued this shuffle for what seemed like ages. After a long period of time, the man looked back at the distance he made and was shocked to see that the door was not in sight. In either direction, the tunnel seemed to have no end. By this time, the man was sweating profusely. Sweat kept beading into his eyes, stinging them and blurring his vision. Nevertheless, the man kept shuffling on. After moving for nearly an hour, the man saw something he never thought he would ever see again: another man. As the man came closer to the other man he became increasingly shocked and grateful to see another person. He had been certain that he would never see another human being again. Eventually the men were five feet apart from each other. Both men did not know what to say. They got closer until they were one foot apart from each other. The other man was his brother. “William?” the man said. “James?” William said. James could not believe that the man standing before him was his brother. Nor could William believe that he was standing before his brother. The two men began in conversation. Apparently, William had done nearly the same things James had done. They both made makeshift covers for their feet using their clothes. The door had also closed on them when they put both feet on the beam. Since both doors had closed, the brothers came to the conclusion that they had no way out of this hellish tunnel. That is, until a voice which boomed through the tunnel said, “Salvation awaits at the opposite door.” This voice scared both men, and they nearly fell off the beam to their death. That voice sounded like the Devil himself. James and William had never heard such an awful noise. Despite the heat, both men began to shiver. Those six words struck fear in the hearts of the men so hard that they could not control their shivers. The shivers eventually seized and the men began to realize their situation. The beam they were standing on was no wider than three inches. The men had a hard enough time just standing on the beam. There was no was no way they would be able to pass each other on the beam. One of them would have to jump off. Neither man said this realization out loud. They were, after all, brothers, and telling your brother that either you or he was going to have to die was not an easy thing to do. For ten minutes, the men said nothing. Then, James said, “I’m sorry for all the times I was mean to you as a kid. I never meant any of the things I said.” “I’m sorry too.” “I’m sure you have realized by now our situation. One of us has to jump off this thing in order for the other to have a chance of survival,” said James. “I know brother, and I am willing to be that person.” James was shocked by William’s willingness to take his own life in order to save his brother’s. However, James was prepared to be the one to jump off. James was single, with no kids. He never surmounted to anything spectacular, except becoming a college professor. William on the other hand was married with two kids. He often volunteered at nursing homes. However, volunteering at nursing homes was not all William did. He did many other kind things for strangers. If there ever was a truly righteous man, William was that man. James said, “No William, I insist that I be the one. You have two kids and a wife to take care of. I have no one to take care of.” “No brother, I will be the one.” “William, I refuse to have you kill yourself for me. You need to keep living because you truly are a great man.” “No, I’m sorry. I could not live with myself knowing that you killed yourself for me.” “Will, I’m serious. I am going to jump.” “No, you will no-“ “Yes I wi-“ And with that, both men jumped off the beam to their deaths.
Copyright © 2005 D Shultz |