Tunnels Archives - The Pure Life of Dreams

October 11, 2022March 30, 2023

Tottenham Court Road Ain’t What it Used to Be

We had been on a plane to London with two flight attendants, blonde ladies with beige Hubert coats and a confident swagger. And when we got out of the terminal it was already night and there was a light drizzle. It must have been two or three in the morning.

A black cab pulled up and one of attendants turned back to us and said “I feel we know you already, seeing as we’ve spent the last four hours together. More, if you count the hours before the plane.”

Then they got into the cab and were whisked away.

March 16, 2022March 20, 2024

A Trip to the Game Provides a Detour

The four of us are off to see England play at Wembley. And this time I have also brought Mama with me. I park the car in the daily parking lot and we walk some distance to the looming grey stadium before ascending to find our seats.

We climb high up into the rafters but the view is constrained by thick mud brown walls and brick sized holes through which you must look. Otherwise, to see the game, you can leave your seat and go to the balcony to peer over.

“Neither view is good, it never is.” I explain. “You are there for the atmosphere more than anything else.”

We walk around but there is not much to see regardless of which brick hole you look through. It is difficult to view more than a small rectangular patch of green at a time. And the players don’t come into the field of vision. It was the same view the last time I came, and I wonder if I could have paid for better seats.

When the game is over we get into the elevator to return to the car, however somehow we are now separated. It is only Mama, Lizzie and I left. Siobhan and Liam are gone.

I press the button to go to the ground floor. Supporters are getting off at different floors, but we have pressed a different button, a button wider than the others; and instead of depositing us at the bottom, the elevator slides onto a rail road track, and rolls out into the open.

I recognize that we are in Boston, and still stuck in the elavator car, which is clearly taking us to its home for its regular cleaning and service. Above us, either side of the tracks, are silver grey skyscrapers and in front, the leafy green elm trees of Boston Common. When the elevator arrives at its destination, it is at a place called Waystar. I need to get back to Siobhan and Liam. Siobhan will worry about us.

The manager, a portly man with ruddy cheeks, comes out of his office to greet us. “Sorry about that. You didn’t press the wrong button did you?” The office is a wooden shed inset by the front gates to the service station.

“No we didn’t press the gold one, just the white, ground floor button,” I replied.

“Well here is a card for a free dry cleaning service,” he says, as he pulls out a large blue tag from his thick woolen jacket and hands it over.

“No, we are only in Boston for a visit, we don’t need that. We just need to get back home.”

“Ok,” he says, and he hands me a brown skinned wallet. I open it. ”Don’t worry, there is enough in there.” I see a fair number of bills in the pocket fold.

“Thanks,” I reply.

We leave through the gates and head for the metro.

“Lizzie, take care of Mama,” I tell her, as Mama wanders off like a bird, taking little bird steps, one foot in front of the other, like a metronome, without pause. Lizzie steers her down the dark grey steps of the metro, taking care that she doesn’t fall. She nudges her gently to adjust her direction on each turn down to the platform.

Finally I can call Siobhan to say we are on our way.

Picture by Alexius Horatius, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

December 23, 2021June 7, 2024

Venturing Out From a Hotel in Afghanistan

Fabulous vignettes in Afghanistan. I am in a bland western hotel in the desert, white tiles, travelers milling about but I am bored, so I leave to walk around outside.

The landscape opens up with fantastic open spaces, green brush, Native American like cave dwellings below, inset in rock formations. The walls are carved with Arabic tooling, like the decorations seen on the window treatments of an ornate vizier’s home; an arch outlined with five half circles. Black and white dots fill the space between the outlines; each arch small with respect to the caves, but repeated horizontally, in sets of three, along light brown walls at floor level.

Miniature entrances to another world.

A bus comes by and I get on it. And it leads me further along the desert road, and down a slope before arriving suddenly into a town where the locals are.

The town bustles with tented market stalls, noise and dust, black robed people and kids running around. It scares me slightly that I am far from the hotel, a lone westerner in a crowd, in a town clearly unvisited by the hotel.

But it is the real deal.

Kids, shirtless, are laughing at me. I realize how exposed I am by myself, but the commotion and the press of people are exhilarating. And now I am out of the bus, climbing high and looking down on the street scenes. And below, I see the same Middle Eastern arches in the walls of the market.

Later I am in a tunnel. I think it is for cars, but I cannot be sure. It is dark, and kids further along the pathway, the same side of the tunnel, are pointing at me. It feels a little threatening, with only a single green metal guardrail separating me from the cars, the space very narrow between guardrail and wall. My big western body can barely fit through the space.

The kids yell over to a group coming up behind me, signal my presence. I push my hands against the wall, back flat against the rail, trying to stretch the path wider. At first the rail will not yield, and though the group is ignoring the kids I want to move on. Then on my next attempt, the green metal bends, the gap for the path widens, and the iron buckles and stretches into thin molten strands as it is pushed away from the wall.

I am back in the open, squatting down by the side of a street, at floor level, watching people walking, legs coming down the steps. I briefly glimpse another lone westerner in the crowd, he must have taken the same bus. It is comforting that I am not the only one to have ventured from the hotel. And another, a woman this time, a brief glimpse of long curly yellow hair, she reminds me of Carol B, thick ankles, seen from my low vantage point. She is also walking down the narrow street market steps, but she disappears as soon as I see her.

Then I am really high up and out in the open sun, on the platform of a temple, I could be on the top of a Hindu dais. A narrow ledge leads me across the front. I look down below, see the same market streets, and more of the cave dwelling, Arabic tooled, curlicues. Kids to my right, sit on a separate platform, further along the ledge. They stand at the top of a series of steps that include a red metal guardrail leading safely down to the market street. It is very narrow between my platform and the kids’.

Separating us is the same very narrow guardrail that was in the tunnel. I won’t make it through but this time I do not think it will stretch with my weight. And so I decide against trying.

Main photo by Zeledi via Wikimedia Commons
Arch photo by Maite Elorza via Flickr (Picture fewer circles, gold trim and in miniature)

November 5, 2021October 27, 2022

Two Nurses Help Me from Being Lost

A boy had a COVID test in hospital chair, had a hard time of it, so I think I’ll try the same. To see if it was that bad.

I sit down in the blue hospital armchair. The nurse puts the tube in my arm, but I can’t get comfortable. There’s no pain, but there’s a strange feel of the rubber hose rolling under the skin of my bicep as I move from side to side.

I hold up my hands, trying to adjust my position. My hands are frozen in the shape of duck feet, pale webbing and pink fingers. They might look strange but they don’t hurt, they’re just amusing to looking at.

October 16, 2021October 22, 2022

Mud, Tunnels and a Citroën 2CV

I am going to a restaurant in Hanwell, stopping first in one of the side streets to drop off both Siobhan and Liam. It is badly lit. And there is thick brown mud everywhere.

“I will park and meet you there.” They go on ahead. But I don’t need to move the car, I am already in a good spot, though my Citroën 2CV is pressed perhaps too close to the curb, hub caps and tires covered in mud. It is between a motorbike and some tree branches that have been thrown into the road. A tow truck hauls a dirty red skip past me, it blocks the view between the 2CV and me.

The car will be fine, I think and head off.