The Tunnel

Credit for the idea to Zen Flesh, Zen Bones

            Rain blew hard in the wind. I walked close to the building and gained some shelter from the storm. When I turned the corner, the wind blew into my face. I couldn't see much, but I kept walking. I was close to the people before I saw them. Because of the wind, they had not heard me.

            The old man and woman stood with their backs against the building. The younger man stood in front of them. He heard me or saw the older people look at me in surprise. He turned toward me and brought his pistol, that he had threatened them with, around, nearly into my face. I struck his arm upward and stepped close to him, grasped him to me, and attempted to take the weapon from him or knock it out of his hand.

            He pushed me off balance and I fell, but I held him tightly, and he fell with me. We rolled together on the wet, muddy ground, fighting for the pistol. His weapon fired. The bullet pierced him through his chest. He died in the mud, trying to say something to me in anger.

            The court acquitted me of criminal intent or effect. At the hearing, what I had done was seen as the fulfillment of social responsibility, even as a heroic act. As I saw it, I had violated my vow to bring no harm.

            After the hearing, I traveled far away that I might, in seclusion, understand what I was to do.

            The villagers who live high on the west slope of a mountain I found in my travels trade with the villagers of the east slope. Some fall and die on the rocks below the cliff trail connecting the two villages. I thought I could tunnel through the mountain, deep under the cliffs, and connect safe trail to safe trail.

            I packed my tools up the mountain and began drilling into stone. Villagers passed my work site. Some of them said, "You are a crazy man. This tunnel you wish to make, it cannot be done," but before spring was full, some of them began to bring me tools and food.

            By midsummer, I drilled far enough into the mountain that carrying the shattered rock from the tunnel was the most arduous part of the work.

            Men from the village on the west slope climbed the rugged mountain trail and sat with me. The oldest man offered me tobacco and said, "What you are doing here, we know you might never finish. Maybe it is a foolish thing to start, since it is impossible to finish, as some say. Still, we have a cart. If you make the floor smooth, just this wide, then you can roll this cart," he stood and walked to the edge of the cliff, "to here and dump it, so. If you will use it, we will bring it to you, and lumber. We will build a bumper here, so the cart does not follow the rock down."

            Cold wind sang through the mountain pass. I set the drills and drove them. Steel sledge clanged on steel drill, sound damped in stone. The drills bit deep into stone.

            Traveling by starlight and by light from the waning moon, the man I saw far below me started up into the pass. I went back in and swung the sledge, one blow to the drill to my right, then one to the left, and back.

            He came into the light with his sword in his hand. "I have come to kill you because you killed my brother."

            "Now that you can be sure of your goal, you might wait. I would finish this tunnel."

            "Why would I care about a tunnel? Who hired you to dig through this mountain?"

            "No one. No one pays me. The villagers bring me food and sometimes powder, but we made no bargain for that. It's freely given, as is my work. As would be your patience in fulfilling your goal in coming here."

            "Why? To what would I give? Who is the tunnel for?"

            "For life. Villagers fall to their death from the cliff trail. This tunnel is going beneath the cliffs. It will give the villagers safe passage."

            "What do I care about villagers? I have come here to kill you, not to serve villagers."

            "By coming to kill me, you say life and death is meaningful. You say your brother's death was wrong. It must be balanced. But then you say death for the villagers doesn't matter."

            "I don't know the villagers." He turned the cart on its side and sat on it with his sword across his lap. "How long would you work now if I hadn't come?"

            "The depth of the drills on the whole face. I'm not far from resting for the night."

            "Work that far then. I'll rest here. If you try to attack me, I'll cut you down."

            I cleared the face. I moved the broken stone while he waited outside. When I finished, we stood in the cold night and looked at the moon directly above the peak of the mountain. He said, "We'll rest now. You can die in the morning sun."

            I slept deeply, without dreams. The warm morning sun shone on me and woke me. He sat on a stone above the trail and looked at me as I rose from the bed I had made just outside the tunnel.

            He said, "You say you build this tunnel for my brother."

            "No. For the living people. Your brother's death helped me see that I must do this."

            "You wish to expiate your sin of murdering my brother."

            "I didn't murder your brother. I attempted to disarm him to protect the people he was trying to rob and to protect myself. In the struggle between us, his pistol fired and killed him. Still, I participated in violence that led to death, and I have not been able to clear that from my mind. By my work here, I hope to clear my mind and my vision."

            "If you were there again, would you allow the robbery to go on?"

            "No. But I would have to see that life force in anything cannot be destroyed for its actions. My response was of immediate force. It could only lead to an escalation of violence. There was the potential to refuse violence, and I missed it. I don't know what I could have done differently, because I was immediately caught up in what happened there, but I violated my most basic values, and I'm still here. That means I still have a lot to learn. Serving can be an effective way to learn."

            "I don't understand. It sounds like rubbish to me. It doesn't matter if I understand or not. I came here to kill you, not to try to understand you. But what you say makes me hesitate. I'll think of it and see if I understand more clearly."

            I drove the drills with my sledgehammer again, broke the rock, and carted the broken rock from the tunnel. I dumped the last load of the night down the cliff face. He stepped forward from the shadows where he had waited and said, "I will kill you, but I'll wait and try to understand this tunnel. I believe you when you say you wouldn't try to escape from me. So I'll return before the moon is full." He left. He passed from my mind as I continued my work.

            Weeks later, in the intense afternoon sun of this high elevation, a man led a mule up the trail climbing the stone of the mountain above all vegetation. I walked back into the tunnel, set the drills, and drove them. I drove them again and levered the rock apart. He walked down the tunnel and stood in the torch light. He took down a torch and lighted the shadows and looked at the tunnel. He put the torch back and said, "You've drilled a good distance while I was gone."

            "I work the depth of a drill and then again the depth of a drill. I load and push and dump the rubble. If I'm about my task, I'm in harmony with this moment."

            "The villagers say you're crazy. They say you can't do it. You've been here almost two years, and you're not a fourth of the way through. I don't have eight years to wait. Yes. Shrug your shoulders and look to the work. I've brought supplies. We'll see what speed five kegs of powder will make."

            I blasted in the morning, cleared the tunnel, and drilled, blasted again. I prepared a charge for morning. He was quick and restless. He watched the progress, left, came back, and left again. He came back at dusk. He built a fire and cooked a stew from provisions the villagers had brought. In the morning of the fifth day, he took the mule and left.

            He came back when I was tamping powder from the third keg. He said, "You're insane. I'm insane. I came here to kill you, and I will. The tunnel does not matter. I must kill you now."

            He approached and then walked away. "But this tunnel, if it is finished, it says my brother's life and death meant something. You are insane, and I'm insane to be influenced by you. You must die now."

            He approached and walked away again. "The villagers think you are a madman, but they say you are a madman sent by God. I don't care at all about the villagers. Do you think I care if you are fearful or calm? Do you think I care what goals you have? I came here to kill you, and I am going to kill you. I will kill you at sunrise. What will you do until then?"

            "I'll set another charge and then sleep."

            "Set another charge for when?"

            "Morning."

            "You're a fool. You don't know what's happening to you. Why set a charge now? You won't be here to set it off. You won't be here to clear the rubble."

            "I'll set it anyway. Perhaps you'll set it off before you leave. I do take you seriously. There is nothing else for me to do. I intend to go as far with the work as I can. Now, I'll drill again."

            He came up the tunnel into the torchlight as I drove the drills at head level. I swung the sledge flat in front of me. He shouted, "Now. I'll wait no longer." I brought the sledge up in its swinging arc and sank the bit, switched hands, and drove the bit beside it. He screamed at me. "You are a fool. Turn and face me."

            I swung the sledge up, and granite gave ahead of the bit. Then his sword penetrated my arm above the wrist. My hand opened, weak. I dropped the head of the sledge, held the handle up with my strong hand and turned around. His face flushed red; sweat ran from him. He crouched with his sword held out in front of him.

            "Leave it."

            "I have work to do." I turned and started to pick up the sledge, but the handle, slick with blood, slipped from my hand. I felt weak and sat down. My blood flowed from me.

            He said, "I have killed you. All I need to do is keep you from stopping the flow. You will bleed to death."

            I tried to stand, fell with weakness, bled, and blacked out.

            Sun shone on me. He brought me soup and bread. He tended the wound. When I gained enough strength to take care of myself, he went into the tunnel, drilled, set charges, blasted, and cleared rubble.

            When I gained enough strength to work again, he prepared his pack and spoke for the first time since he screamed at me in the tunnel. "When you fell unconscious, the tunnel closed in on me. It pressed me down harder and harder. I couldn't move until I reached to help you. When the tunnel is finished is time enough."

            I used the rest of the powder and again broke the rock apart with hand tools. He brought more powder and material to build ducting to ventilate the tunnel after blasting.

            We loaded rubble; one wheeled the cart out and dumped it while the other stood in the rubble and drove the drills high in the new face. One tamped powder while the other chisled stone to smooth the track for the cart.

            Fall winds chilled the mountain. The villagers climbed the mountain and sat with us inside the mountain, smoked, and nodded toward the fire. The old man said, "And this winter? Do you stay inside the mountain? We would take you down to the village or bring you winter supplies. By the new moon, snow will close the trail."

            "We are nearly supplied, with what you have brought us. One of will go out and return before the snow."

            We cocooned ourselves in the mountain to sleep. We walked into the tunnel to work.

            He said, "I'm nervous when I think of myself. I'm at peace when I'm stone in stone, stone and opener of stone. If I am stone, I sleep without dreams and wake strong for work. If I move this stone only as I move it, if I don't wonder is it day or night, or is there snow to clear today, or wind-cleared stone, but if I push the cart out into the beauty that is daytime or nighttime and do whatever I must do, then I am at ease."

            He brought the cart out and detonated the charge. We walked up the tunnel to the room dug from stone and shut the door. I broke open a bundle of wood and set a small fire for the tea and the stew. He stood close to the fire and said, "If we don't speak of the cold, then we don't suffer from it; is this right? I'm not sure, so I'll try the other way. I am very cold. I have been cold for many days. When I sleep, I am warm, and this I am grateful for. But all day, I'm cold. I'm colder because it's always dark.

            "Does a mole go blind because he lives where it is always dark, or is he born blind? I'm warm when I drive the drills. The torches bring us light and warmth, and I'm grateful for that light and warmth. Speaking of it makes me nervous. I'm deep inside the mountain. The mountain presses down on me. The mountain presses down on the air I breathe, trapped here, with no way down the winter trail. I feel it too much, the stone, the mountain. I'm going out. I have to see the sky."

            When I thought he should be back, I went out. He lay in the snow near the entrance, barely conscious. I loaded him into the cart and brought him back. He slept a long time.

            He woke when I set a light. He said, "We'll run out of powder before the winter is over. If we ration it to the end of winter, we can vary our work more. Two days of breaking rock with hand tools. One day of blasting."

            He left in the spring and came back in the summer. He said, "You aren't an individual anymore. You're stone. There is no difference in what you know if your hammer strikes the drill or if mine does. Part of your life is gone from you."

            "Then perhaps I am nearer to knowing what I came here to learn."

            "Down there, I am an outsider. I can't go back and be as I was."

            We smoothed the exit and dumped the last rock. We packed and moved tools and came back and stayed in the sunshine near the entrance a day. The second day, we walked through the tunnel and back again.

            The first villagers followed us through then, walking very quietly. They stayed a distance from us, thanked us from a distance, and left quickly.

            He walked through and back once more, by himself. He looked up at the old trail, that would not be used again. He said, "I am empty. The last stone fell down the slope like stone falling out of me. Darkness broke when we broke through to light. Rock fell away and left me buoyant. Light filled me and carried me up until I see clearly. I see the mountain. I see the tunnel, the stone, and all of the earth. I am the mountain, filled with the light that rises over the mountain."