The 3rd Jul 2010 WriteOnSite Winning Entry
It's a game our Freddie taught me, when I reached thirteen and it was my turn to come down. He knew how much I hated the dark.Once, some of the other boys shut me in the school cupboard and I screamed like a girl; I don't like tight spaces. Freddie understood, and he knew I was going to be scared, so he took me out to the meadow one day and together we dug down through one of the molehills that were splattered across Mr. Gaskell's land.
'Look,' Freddie said, poking down with a thick ash branch. 'See that little gallery where the mole's been taking a rest? Look, you can see how he's just burrowed through, up to the fresh air and the light. The mine's just the same - you know you've only got to come up the shaft again and you'll hit daylight.' He sat back on his heels and looked at me, all serious, because he thinks he has to be the father now. 'You'll be fine, Robbie, I promise. Just imagine you're a mole, tunnelling up to the top, and any minute you're going to break through into the fresh air and the sunshine will nearly blind you...'
I'm trying to pretend I'm that mole, now, wriggling along on my elbows where it's too tight to get through easily. Further back, I could stand, and then for a while I could crawl with space around me. Now, I'm into a part I don't know, and it seems to be taking forever to get to the next junction. There'll be a little light there - just the faint glow of a candle to lead me - but until I get far enough to make it out there's nothing but the thick, dusty darkness around me, and the scuffling of my own knees and elbows on the jagged floor.
I'm trying hard, really hard, not to cry. I'm trying not to think about the tons and tons of solid rock all around me, above me, and I'm trying not to remember that sometimes it can shift and crush a man, the way it crushed my dad when the old shaft collapsed.
My chest feels tight as though the rocks are pressing in around me, but I know it's just the fear. It's like waking up in the middle of the night and finding the sky's turned solid around you while you sleep. I clutch at my mouth with a hand that stinks of oily coal, stopping the scream which might bring the rocks down.
I'm a mole. I'm shuffling through the chambers of my own little earthworks, and I'm going to turn upwards any moment now, and smell the turned earth with its weeds and fruits rotting above me. The earth will lighten, it'll be softer and crusty, like fresh-baked bread, and before long I'll have the sense of warmth coming through from the heat of the sun, blazing down on the meadow. There are two lads above me, poking down with a stick - hope they don't jab me with it on my way up.
The sky will be almost too bright, when I burst through onto the turf; it will be too huge, too light. The meadow will be like a jungle after the safety of my little gallery, but I'll be free to wriggle and squirm. This darkness can't go on for much further; this little corridor can't get any tighter. I can hardly draw my knees up to my chest now, to crawl; I'm slithering. I'm more of a worm than a mole, and I don't see the candle.
Somewhere up there, I'll imagine Freddie waiting, sitting back on his heels on the damp green grass with the buttercups sprinkled around his feet. He's waiting for me, calling me. If I can just get a little further.....
Copyright © 2008 Rob Richardson. All Rights Reserved.