Portals

I was driving on the motorway today when I noticed something I’d never seen before. Some fleet and forgotten impulse caused me to turn my head, and within the blurred grey-gold of the earth and concrete embankment whirring past the motorway, I saw a tunnel.

This happens from time to time, a sudden glimpse through the smiling façade of the city we know- the familiar and comfortable- to the things underneath, the things the city tries hard to hide. We are trained not to see them, we follow sheltered paths through preconceived routes, and only see what has been selectively illuminated- everything else is veiled from us. This veil is thick and falls over everything, from empty lots, to dark alleys, to dirty underpasses- allowing us to pass by them blissfully, contentedly, and ignorantly unaware.

But every so often- if you stare directly at it- the veil vanishes and you are suddenly confronted with what is really there- the underside of the city. Strange structures and secret doors, odd angles and funny corners, walled voids and buried gardens- all becoming the ever-dense and impenetrable foundation of the rising city. There can also be found- though you may have to look harder still- the graves of the city- the silent skeletons and the old bones- lost and forgotten- but all there, and always present.

Then there are the tunnels. While relics and ruins dot the surface, the tunnels transcend the surface altogether. Here are portals to parallel realms within the city- under roads and beneath buildings- within ground that long predates the city above.

What had I found this time? A service tunnel for a storm-water system, or a substation buried under road-works? I returned- and now that I had seen it once, the spell had broken. The tunnel mouth suddenly gaped wide and obvious, but still- as I approached the highway on foot- the people rushing by only saw me- an oddity, an alien- a lost soul that had fallen through the cracks of their carefree world and now lay uncomfortably outside. They stared- blank faced and uncomprehending- until I slipped behind the curtain.

The tunnel mouth was round, clad with corrugated sheet to support earth and concrete over. A short antechamber housing a short fall of stairs led to a locked gate of iron bars- this is the portal. I passed by the gate, and set off into this world that I am not wholly unfamiliar with- a world without light, without warmth, and without companionship.

The underside of the city.