Tunnel Vision
In the summer of 1982, the imagination of a fifteen-year-old boy suddenly sparked into life. He wrote an essay for his homework that was unlike any other he had written before. The essay concerned a faceless man boldly walking into an unlit tunnel. At first the faceless man could see that he was entering a tunnel; he could see the walls and the arched ceiling above. But after a time, the light from outside grew ever more distant and the man’s vision began to fail. Facing the unknown is a circumstance that most people experience at some point in their lives, the unnerving realisation that they cannot accurately see what’s around them or judge how close something is. This feeling is magnified in an unfamiliar environment and the imagination often runs riot. In the tunnel the man couldn’t tell how close he was to the walls or whether there were any pits or holes in the floor nearby and he had absolutely no idea what was ahead. He half imagined diabolic beasts creeping up behind him and he became nervous. Humans usually fear the unknown, the things they do not understand and the things they cannot see. The man’s steps began to falter but he continued to stumble onwards, reluctant to go on but afraid to turn back. Soon he was completely enveloped in darkness and it became apparent that he could no longer tell whether he was in a tunnel or not. All the he could see was an unending black void. No walls, no floor and when he finally looked back, no tunnel entrance. Alone and vulnerable, the man became terrified. He was tired and contemplated standing still but a numbing feeling had begun to rise up through his body and yet to continue walking on seemed a waste of time. He had no point of reference, nothing to aim for, no goal. And there he stood for what seemed like an eternity, alone in the dark until there came a point when the man ceased to exist, he simply faded to black. The fifteen-year-old boy wasn’t really sure what the essay meant but as he grew up he thought about it. The narrow tunnel may have represented the path we all have to follow through life, from the moment we are conceived to our dying breath, with all the restrictions and hurdles in-between. It may have alluded to the struggles we face, the nature of our existence, and the overwhelming task of just making sense of it all. It may even have represented only one person’s journey, and the darkness their own death. No beautiful white light for this child, no heaven, just a dark and cold uninhabited void. In the end, the stark reality for most of us is that life is a prison cell that shrinks smaller by the day, but is death a release?