Anything it Needs to Be

An attempt at creative writing

What Lies Within

The darkness surrounded me. Looking through the window of a dimly lit steel shell, the world around me had vanished in a blink of an eye. Everything had just grown blacker than the deepest depth’s of the ocean. There were no more pretty landscapes, no recognizable signs of civilization, just emptiness. Inside, the passengers still awake were all occupied with their books and games. I seemed to be the only one who noticed. Slowly I put away my copy of Les Miserables. My interest for progressing any further in the monstrosity of that book’s length was cut short from what had just occurred. The blown pupils of my hazel eyes showed it. They were frozen still - the trance usually reserved for the pulling of teeth for gold Napoleons as in Victor Hugo’s novel. This was worse. It was the kind of sickening feeling that comes about not by what you can see, but of what you can’t. And as much as my mind tried to assure me there was nothing to worry, I noticed my sweaty hands already clinging to the arm rests with a ghastly grip. Having just entered the 50km channel tunnel, I knew there was no going back.

There’s a fire onboard! Flames ripped through the passenger cars like wildfire. People were screaming in hysteria, frantically trying to extinguish the flames surrounding them. Unbeknownst to them, the passenger cars were lined with the most flammable materials imaginable. It was a lost battle. Surprisingly, looking out through the window, the light of the flames revealed the geometries and textures of the concrete tunnel wall. The small white lights hanging in the tunnel twinkled until fading to grey. The only thing now visible was a thick foggy grey cloud that with each breath burned my lungs. Coughing erratically, I drew to the floor, hoping to somehow escape, but to where?

Looking around me once more among at the few passengers on the train, nothing had happened. There was never a fire. Oh, relief. It seemed that anything my mind had tried to think of to logically ease the tension, my imagination was trumping it. Within this tunnel everything changed. As the train vibrated and jostled in the darkness, I was beginning to lose my bearings, almost like a person in zero-gravity could loose their sense of direction. Forward and backwards became a motionless blur. And as much as I hoped that the tunnel exit would be near, time seemed to stop in its tracks.

The screeching of the train wheels suddenly increased, as so our speed. The train’s horn blasted an eerily cry. And then again once more, but this time it was different. It seemed to be further away. The horn blasted again in the distance. The equation indicated two trains, not one. And being an equation, balance demanded that both were destined to come to a halt. And of the conclusions vividly springing in my mind, there was only one: collision. It was a moment of desperation, of glared eyes, and nervous anticipation…

Not again I thought, desperately trying to think of anything else. Passing the time by imagining morbid scenarios isn’t working. For what seemed to be a simple journey through the channel, it had instead become a series of tacky low-budget movies in my mind; the kind full of dreadful stereotypes and less than stellar acting that ensue cult-followings decades later. Raising my forearm to wipe the few strands of sweat from my brow, I was perplexed how I had gotten in such a state of mind.

It began in Liverpool Station. Outside, I heard the quaint whirl of bicycle carriers in their rush to deliver parcels, to the honking small black cabs looking for the next fare. The crowded streets were bustling of life. People all walking about seemed to be going home, but I knew better, they were all heading to the pubs - the one after work tradition of Londoners everyday of the week.

In the station, the sun’s rays shone brightly through the large open skylights above. The shadows of the crowd below all joyfully moved in dance. Yet the expressions on each person’s face indicated otherwise. It was a ballet of the miseries, interrupted only with the equally sterile, computerized voice of the intercom system which made people gaze at the ticker. The time is 5.47 pm. People were anxiously pacing about waiting for their train to arrive, some tending to their energetic kids, while others just finding a place to sit. The dreadful wait for the train was enough to drive anyone mad. Arriving far too early to begin with, my companions and I had now been obliged to wander about looking for anything of interest. We were no stranger to this though; we’ve all dealt with this anywhere we go. It was normal. Airports, hospitals, movie lines, checkout lines, we are all stuck waiting in these places. We were all waiting for something to happen. Something we want.

It was now a quarter after. And as such, the sound of screeching brakes and doors sliding apart finally allowed us to enter the machine that would whisk us far away. Taking my seat, the worn out orange cushioned seats had never felt so comfortable. The train jostled and shook, blowing its whistle, and chugging its way along the tracks at a snail’s pace. It was shame not being able to get a ticket for a seat closer to my friends, but it’ll do. We’ll end up in the same place anyway. Looking out the window, the steel beams and columns of the station turned into skyscrapers and bridges - then again to hills and trees. The sky glowed soft magentas and lavenders, until at last; an intense crescent of scarlet pierced the horizon of the English countryside. Farewell London, I’ll return.

The autumn air was crisp and cold. The naked sky above made the white building ahead glow a soft shade of blue. Great tall oak trees surrounded the house with their fierce, dark green canopies and greyish-browns of their crackling trunks. The dew within the crevices and facets of the bark sparkled with the sun’s rays. Ever so minute, the droplets of water still scattered on the leaves dripped like molasses until eventually splattering down below. The old forest was shrouded in a gentle mist. The previous night’s drizzle can be thanked for that. Looking about the lawn, scattered within the dying multitude of dying leaves and grass clippings stood about a peculiar specimen. Its glossy hazel shell and dusty brown cap stood there motionless. There were hundreds of them. Some had been torn about, some pristine, some half eaten. They had dropped quite far from their birth in the trees. For all they can do once they fell from up high was hope they would triumph over the nothingness many of its chums had already fared. Their fate was all chance.

Walking down the gravel dirt path, hearing the crunching of rocks against another under my feet, the entrance was drawing closer with each step I took. Nestled in the small town of Poissy, France, that soft blue building stood on piloti much like the trees surrounding it: firm and true. An architectural marvel was standing before me – at least that’s what I been told again and again. I couldn’t help but focus my attention elsewhere, to the forest and its boundary. For at the base of those oak tree trunks, those small hazel shells contained something special beneath its layers.

Reaching down on the lawn through the yellowing fallen leaves, my finger touches its cold and damp shell. Twirling it with my fingers, I notice small ridges all around it and the slight hues of greens trapped at its base. Letting it roll down into the palm of my hand, I gazed upon it one last time. It was no bigger than my own thumb, but it was smaller than the one I had found along Constitution Hill Road by Buckingham palace. It was completely fascinating. Jostling the almost weightless acorn in my palm, the seed within made the slightest clatter. It was waiting to grow. Much like the idea nestled within the mind. Brooding until it is ready to come into form. The sprout wanted to break from its capsule of darkness and emerge towards the light, regardless of how slim its chances were. To grow into the firm tree it can be. And after its decades of growing, of amassing the rings within its trunk, its grandeur can be admired and revelled by those around it. For those who knew it while it grew tall celebrate its existence, and to those who came along afterward enjoy its presence and past. For the oak tree, it only wishes to exist. For an idea, it wants to live forever.

Closing my fingers around the acorn, my hand retreats back into my pocket, crushing its one hope.

I close the door behind me.