I am a tunnel ( The clockwork boxes 12 and last one)

I had the tormenting and freaking awareness of this incessant trip under the ground. Someone was running after me all the time trying to scare me with his warm, eternal song, inside the  depths of the tunnels. I wanted to force myself to stay awake and search for the security of a loud babbling voice, a voice that would be able by itself, like a strong spear, to keep away from me all my hunters and much more, my own desire to surrender myself to them.

That’s why I have always been afraid of the sound of subway trains and at the same time I have been so much attracted by their underground moaning that I am trembling with anticipation every time a train is approaching the boarding platform. The doors which close and open like the petals of a carnivore plant, waiting for their victims , the soft humming noises of people walking  and running, the feeling of certainty that the earth surface is a floating island above my head, the faces of the engine drivers who are changing shifts…Faces without any expression, with a gaze of superiority as if they have just returned from a palace ball on a royal ship..And those huge window panes that are like transparent mirrors of my multiple idols…But yes I am  certain. The net of the big sleep, of the eternal lethargy, is becoming larger and larger behind my feet and if it manages to grab me, it will keep me wandering in its tunnels for ever.. A possibility,  that I haven’t decided yet if it’s attractive or repulsive. What if I decided to make the tunnels net, the junctions of its webs, be my real home? I should search carefully for its most secret corners and learn how the webs are construced. Then I would be able to construct  my own webs. What a strange thing it would be to proceed without knowing anything but having  the eternal knowledge of all the worlds inside my chest. This kind of knowledge had led me safe and sound in front of the door I had found underground. That day I had come across the spot of the black dust.

I am still in the network. I have been bought by thousands of people and I have bought thousands of  them too. I cannot remember their faces  at all and I am sure that no one remembers mine. The sound of the huge machine which operated like a strap of living exhibits,  has faded into a distant past. After all it was not a special sound, just a sound that I can forget very easily even if it tormented my ears for long. As they all used to say, I was a rather indifferent exhibit, too much ordinary for most of them, slightly necessary for some others, completely indifferent to others. But I can also say, after all this time, that everyone was indifferent to me. Yes, there were some human exhibits who attracted my attention for some seconds but that was all. Now I can buy and sell anyone I want. I don’t even have to enter the auction room. I have become a specialist. However, the most exciting thing is that I can be sold to anyone who wants to buy me, without having to make any bargain.You know, the truth is that I am a secret tunnel. If you approach me you will listen to my underground voices and the creaking wood of my columns.

image: Andreas Feininger