2002-07-02 - 1:13 p.m.

Tunnels

Frequently I�ve been reminded that I don�t think like other people. But more to the point, few people think like others. But there are some things I just find hard to accept, and that is just how much do I think like others.

Today at lunch I was talking with co-workers about where we grew up, and when I saw the new paint job on the bridge here in Sacramento I was reminded of the numerous bridges around Pittsburgh, PA. Not a big deal, unless you are a 5-year old who believes that inanimate objects have souls.

Souls

When I was 5-years old (and younger) I paid a great deal of attention to the area around me. My folks probably don�t know this, but when I was told, �Don�t wander�, I�d let them know I wouldn�t wander, but I did. I remember walking through neighbor�s houses. It was as if property lines and doors had no meaning to me. I swore to my family that I could never get lost, and I haven�t. But what they don�t know is that as a kid I saw places of great good and places of great evil.

One of the places that really disturbed me was one of the tunnels in Pittsburgh. I don�t know its name, but when we�d drive from the south side of town to my grandmothers (which was up the river) we would pass through one of two tunnels. One was good, and one was evil. I�d ask my parents which tunnel we�d go through, but what they didn�t know was I really wanted to know if I was going to live or die. Would we pass through the bowels of hell or not today?

Evil Tunnel

The evil tunnel was round, dirty � hell, it was industrial as things get. What bothered me about wasn�t just its state of disrepair, but at both ends there were two large exhaust fans. The fans would quickly rotate and force the exhaust out of the tunnels, but they made a terrible noise. The noise hurt, so naturally it was evil. But worse, the noise only made me pay attention to the fans. I was old enough to know that nobody would believe me (I�d already complained about Dracula living in one of my dad�s clocks), but I could swear that those fans were used to chop people.

This is a bit disturbing. Yeah, I was 5-years old, and concerned that somebody had a human meat processing plant and was tricking people like my parents to drive through it, risking all of our lives.

Do children think these things? No, really do they? I did, and I just assumed that everybody as a child saw the world in such black and white details.

It sounds GAF (Goth As Fuck) to say something like this, but damn I wish it were just a story. Little things like this make me wonder where I got these ideas. Was it television or something else?

LISTENING TO: Love Spirals Downward Temporal

-=-

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