Fear of Tunnels No More….

Empty hallways, silent corridors, and dark tunnels always give me the creeps. Blame my overactive imagination, but I swear that it is a surreal experience to walk in those places and hear just the reverberation of your own footsteps. Plus, I couldn’t get it. Why do tunnels have to be cold, like the moment you step on it, the air temperature seems to instantly drop by several degrees? Isn’t it enough that they have to be so dark? Sure, I understand the science behind it but you couldn’t use that reason to my imagination. It wouldn’t just simply accept that.

But today is especially different. I was struck with the newly-felt love for dark tunnels. I was struck with the fact that the moment you stepped in on the tunnel’s shadows with the light behind you, I may have not seen your face but I recognized your form. Your movements may be fuzzy due to my defective vision but I confidently recognized the faint rhythm of your footsteps which was learned from almost a year of careful but discreet study. And in that brief second of the brushing of the air that our movements have caused when we walked past each other, you may have barely took a glance of me but it was like asking me again that one brief question if how I was from almost a year ago.

In that brief instance, I forgot my fears of dark tunnels and the echo of my footsteps which was melding with yours didn’t sound at all creepy to me. And surprisingly, the air wasn’t several degrees cooler----it offered a warm, and fuzzy stirring---the kind of warm and fuzzy that caused me to hum happily in broad daylight while doing one of the most mundane tasks of buying snacks..

Today, I momentarily learned to love the usually eerie tunnel because you were in it, because in a very brief instance, I shared it solely with you. :)