Tunnels

We lived underground, afraid of close relationships. I was in school, studying the chemistry of poisonous gasses. She had given herself to acid. You could usually find her playing with octagonal tabs at deeper level cafe-bars. She watched shapes of neon color dance on dirty walls.

We met at the burrow of a friend. There were six or seven of us, a small laptop was playing Neutral Milk Hotel. She gave me a pill. We stared at the screensaver for hours, her head on my shoulder. We talked about movies and Audrey Hepburn. We had sex on the air mattress after everybody went to bed.

There was something in her childlike innocence that frightened me. I was afraid she could suddenly stop liking me with the same ease she lovingly whispered my name with, her eyes giant balloons full of love. At the same time, I was afraid of getting bored of her if she kept adoring me completely and innocently like this. I did not want to get bored of her.

We read Kundera novels and started debates that always ended up in sex. We took hallucinogens next to the dark brown pond on one of the lower levels. We imagined the same flying fishes jumping out of the dark and rusty waters. We stayed in bed all day eating pizza. We drank wine and joked about the surface. We talked about our exes, avoiding too much detail. Our friends invited us everywhere together. We walked hand in hand in the wet, corroded tunnels lit by orange sodium lamps. We were really happy. We wanted to see the sun. I was in love.

“Let’s climb up today,” she said one day, with her usual spontaneity. I said yes. I would have said yes no matter what she had asked. She might have asked if we should drink arsenic together. I would have said yes. I was in love.

We held each other’s hands and went up to the surface. The light was raw and bright. It was hot. “I want to live here with you my love,” she said to me. I said yes. I would have said yes no matter what she asked. She might have asked me to open up a baby’s guts. I would have said yes. I was in love.

We found a lake and swam naked. There was an abandoned cottage among pine trees. We started living there. Months or years passed without seeing anyone else. We had forgotten our friends. Sometimes we would remember the tunnels or the dark brown pond we got high next to. Fleeting glimpses of moments from days below would come to our minds from time to time, but we mostly didn’t think about them.

We didn’t have sex as often as we used to, but we were happy. We slept in each other’s arms and played pick up sticks with the fallen pine leaves. We didn’t care about the future or the past, we couldn’t remember much besides ourselves anyway. We still loved each other passionately.

We yearned for a child, but she never got pregnant. After a while all traces of children faded away from our memories, we couldn’t remember what a child looked like. We were at peace, relaxed, content, and spoke very little. We weren’t using our names, so we had forgotten them as well. During the days filled with swimming, gathering fruits and sleeping, we smiled with a pleasant calmness.

We had no worries at all, nothing that could take away from our happiness. We couldn’t speak anymore, we had forgotten the words, but we were glad to be with each other. We enjoyed the feeling of rain on our skin. We didn’t know why we were happy, we didn’t need to. We didn’t know how we had met or how we came to be here. We just existed next to each other.

We snuggled on cold winter nights, it was warmer that way, but we didn’t know each other. Sometimes I was a little scared of this stranger living in the same cottage, but it always passed right away, it didn’t really disturb my comfort, we were completely content. We nevertheless kept our distance, just in case. She slept a little further away every night. Finally she left one day and never came back.

I was really relieved when she left. I was even happier now that there was nobody to be afraid of anymore. With a smile I closed my eyes, but I forgot to open them ever again.