Lockdown: Day 40.
In some ways, it seems that becoming a kind of hermit-writer over the last few years has prepared me somewhat for the current global situation. “So, it’s just another normal day for you then?” several friends have commented. Well, not exactly…
With less than two months until the release of my debut novel, it feels like there’s never been so much work to do. Exciting times! So to celebrate, I thought I would post one of my short stories from the recently published Scapegoats & Crowbars. I do hope it provides some distraction (it’s approximately a 4-minute read), and that you are all staying safe and well out there? If you enjoy the story, please do get in touch.
In the coming weeks, building-up to Steggie Belle & the Dream Warriors’s release, I will be posting a few short stories explaining my reasons for choosing to write this book, and why it is so special to me.
Best wishes, Elias Pell
A Light at the Middle of the Tunnel
First impressions had been promising. Dark tunnel. Distant light. The feeling of floating weightlessly towards it. Being sucked into one of the tunnel wall fixtures had come as a surprise. It hadn’t taken long to deduce the locale, only minutes before the first rumbling train thundered through.
Instinctively he knew his body was gone, how else could he be stuck inside a light bulb? Some misrepresented Heaven? Or feebly imagined Hell? Unsure, he waited - like a tourist in some unfathomably foreign land - for answers. They never came.
As far as potential afterlives go, it wasn’t so bad. He was impressed by the sheer recyclable frugality of it all. It took some getting used to, of course. The lack of any certitude he found most infuriating but then, having lived as an atheist, he couldn’t really complain. The biggest hurdle was boredom: how best to occupy a disembodied mind.
The sole distraction were those passing trains. He found that he possessed a new talent. Here, time was flexible, with practice and focus he could slow down those shuttling carriages to a snail’s pace, viewing the passengers within frame by frame. Doing so, he discovered these were not the Underground tunnels of London, but Rome. Another mystery: since his living body had never been there. His only connection to the city was that Mary had often begged that they should go; a romantic getaway, anniversary visit, or better yet a much needed fresh start.
Being the filament within some Roman light bulb had distressed him a great deal at first. Perhaps it was the guilty feeling of abandonment, having left Mary all alone. Another failing on his part. He had never meant to hurt her, or cause her pain; had just wanted the best for her, even if she seldom understood his possessive methods of expression. He thought of her often. How, when his terminal prognosis was made, she had wept. How Mary had promised - despite all his protestations - that she would never love again. He hadn’t pushed the matter: but now with ample time and absolute honesty, he realised he had been delighted, overjoyed at her eternal pledge. His life had not been meaningless, his fragile ego relieved that truly he had been her world. In a London tunnel, there had been at least a chance that her path might cross his prison cell. He had imagined the scene often: of her grief-stricken and in mourning, then maybe a faint and fleeting smile across her face, at the remembrance of a time they had shared.
Such longshot probabilities equal loneliness. Yet, ‘When in Rome...’ as the old saying goes. He had, therefore, decided even without the hope of seeing Mary, to take an active interest in his surroundings. Every train was delicately spiced and laden with stories: every carriage a melting pot of emotions and jaundiced dreams. He became a voyeur. Coveting their little daily dramas, their exquisite lives rolling repetitively by.
There was only one other distraction down in that dark tunnel. The far rarer and unpredictable appearance of some maintenance man: forever whistling the same lifeless tune. Most often simply checking the tracks, but on one occasion, swapping out a ‘dead’ bulb. Seeing that got him thinking seriously.
He learnt the real power of faith. After all, with too much time and solitude, general reasoning can often lead to unambiguous convictions. He did the maths. Logic confirmed that this stasis could not be a permanent arrangement. The tunnel had to be some sort of staging area, a waiting room for some inevitable transition - perhaps better known by the living as Limbo or Purgatory. Surely, he surmised, his next life was destined to begin in Italy. He liked that idea: practised to perfection the phrase ‘Ciao bella!’ from inside of his cocoon.
Time ticked with the rhythmic passing of trains. Then, quite unexpectedly, one day, it happened. At first he convinced himself it wasn’t her, couldn’t possibly be. Mary looked so different. Over their last ten years together, he had not allowed her, nor had she ever once dared to step outside in anything but long sleeves, sunglasses and scarf. All covered up, no matter what the weather. Heavy makeup hiding the consequences of her terrible ‘clumsiness’, her freshly bruised flesh a testament to the fact that she never listened to him, and would never learn.
Now, seeing her in a vest top and summer skirt, he barely recognised her. He couldn’t remember her skin ever looking so healthy. She was smiling too - no - beaming in fact, her cheeks all rosy and flushed. Then he saw she was not alone. The equally cheerful man she was standing next to was raising his arm, in a slow-motion and terrible arc. Was he about to strike her, or to wrap it protectively around her shoulder? Mary did not flinch at all - yet another inconsistency from the woman he had known. Then they were gone. The next carriages no longer offered any interest or amusement for him. He could feel his temper rising, that fusion of fear and anger flowing. Creating an unstable current and causing an emotional lapse of self-control.
Filaments really are such fragile things.
Soon afterwards, still wavering between denial and disbelief, there came the sound of that distant whistling.
As the workman drew near, he noticed one light bulb flickering erratically. He waited for a while in the hope it was just some temporary malfunction, then altered his direction and approached the faulty bulb. The tunnel was deathly silent. As he unscrewed it, he could not hear the frantic screaming from within.
Now, inside that bulb, only darkness. An eternity for a trapped soul to do battle with itself. Tormented by the enigma: what was the worst it could have been?