Thunder roars off in the distance muffled by the whirring of an engine and the hum of a tired mind. Rain pours heavy on the windshield and fog dusts the terrain carrying chunks of reflected light throughout the air. The heat is cranked to max and the faint smell of petrichor wafts into the car leaving a sense of earthy hollowness about the journey ahead. Ahead, I'm sinking, sinking into yet another summer adventure attempting to pull me away from the words I can't quite make out yet. Pulling, and pulling, and pulling, my nerves are ripped and intertwined, entangled, and torn however even with the distraction of travel my thoughts still haunt me.  

Winding roads curve in every which way like leftover pasta strands molded deep into damp cliff sides and straight through lush crops ready for harvest. An hour passes and the rain lessens. Wheels squeak to a stop in a seemingly abandoned sideroad. The only indication that I'm in the right place is a rotted wooden sign no bigger than a foot long, covered in thick vegetation. When finished examining the sign I walk out of the car and down a slippery gravel road lodged in between two valley sides, fogged by thick mist, and drenched in the downpour. The rain is far from warm, piercing my body on impact and soaking my clothes beyond imagination.

A mile up the road 2 towering wooden doors lead way to a murky black tunnel. Alongside the entrance 2 streams of rainwater flow outward creating a thin rugged path forward. For all, I know miles of darkness lie before me, miles of which could stretch to infinity if they wanted to. Miles that do not scare me but rather enthrall me. Without hesitation, I light my lamp and trudge deep into the jaws of the unknown.

Slish slosh! Footsteps echo along old metal walls and water ebbs from the cracked ceiling. Even under the cover of concrete, it's still raining. From the rain that the walls give way and burst out crying with water droplets flowing down their rusted sides only to be washed away in the ever-flowing streams at my feet. My eyes can't help but drift toward these walls, darting back and forth desperately staring at the only visible thing in sight.

Suddenly I stop. I pivot to look behind me. The entrance light is gone. In my hands is the only light in the world white, fluorescent, eerie, and unnatural. I shut it off, and stand there, in the dark, alone in my thoughts, listening to the world, an all too familiar scene only amplified by the walls around me. Something different this time. Something sinister yet calming. Something filled with a thousand words, yet none at all. Something I've waited so long just to feel. This time the door is open, and I'm one foot in the grave of an inky abyss. I wait, afraid to turn on the light yet also afraid that I'll be stuck in this tunnel forever If I don't. 

Time passes. I continue stumbling in the dark. Eventually, the light of the outer world lurches inward as an ever-growing speck. It isn't exactly a bright light with its dull whitish colors, while at the same time it isn't exactly as dark as the tunnel behind me. Walking out there was no rainbow or golden flash; the world was what it was. And so I continued walking down the gravel road. I don't know what is ahead; perhaps another train tunnel or a gargantuan cliffside. All I know is that I'm still stuck on that path surrounded by mist and stuck in the clouds. All I know is that it’s still raining.   

7 months have passed since my venture into the tunnel, the rain has thinned as of late, and I can't help but reflect upon the hollowness of that watery grave. A soggy pit aged with time, half ethereal half earthbound filled to the brim with ghosts, and specters. In times of chaos when I'm overwhelmed by the thoughts of my mind, and exhausted with worry I look back up the path and remember the tunnel. Ironic how it takes a moment of standstill in the void in order to push it back. Since the day I drowned in the darkness I've learned a deeper appreciation for the silence found in the little moments of quiet and realization, bringing me back from my castle of clouds, reminding me where I am on the pathway, and mustering the courage to move onward.  Sometimes the only way to heal a wound is to cut deeper, let it air, and keep moving up the gravel pathway.