Claustrophobic Aerobics

There! Is the light at the end of the tunnel. I half heartedly explain to myself. Gesturing with my nose pointing the way. For my arms are pinned to my side. In this shaft none to wide. So thankful am I to have you buy my side. You always show up in pinch. Ms. Anxiety. Though little help have you provided me. What won’t stop bitting me?

I’ve screamed my heart out. (Help me!) To no avail. No doubt sooner or later I’ll probably start panicking and begin to wiggle and wail. Throwing caution to the wind. Until exhausted I lower my chin and settle in. Which will relax my body causing me to sink deeper into the abyss I imagine.

"This will be a miserably slow death" I said aloud. No sense preserving my breath. What’s the chance I’m stumbled upon by strangers? Before dehydration and starvation make me resemble someone strung out on meth. And I slide my way to the bottom of this shaft never to be heard from again.

After many days of agonizing pain. And deeply disturbing thoughts while being pelleted by rain. Sent from the heavens to drive me mad. I had slid so far down while asleep. I refused myself rainwater. In the hopes I’d die rather than go on feeling so unbearable sad. I knew I’d never see my daughter again. And she’d always wonder what happened to dad. That was the lowest I’d ever felt. What hope do I have? I wanted to see her again so very very bad.

As the slot I suffered in soaked it grew slicker. And I slide farther and quicker. I swear I couldn’t see light anymore. For some reason this made me snicker. From here on out me and my thoughts only spoke to question the validity of the others. As I grew sicker. More and more we’d bicker. One beating the other up for giving in and sneaking sips of life giving liquor and vice versa.

The worse was yet to come. I tried not to imagine. And the it happened. I no longer had the girth to resist gravity. Tragically. The thought that crossed my mind as I slide faster. And then magically I felt my arms waving freely above my head for a moment. Had I died or was it a hallucination. In the pitch black I had little in the way of indication.

Just then I felt a breeze. Right before immense pain shot up thru my knees. Then I heard a loud cracking sound. And I passed out a half a second later. I am told that’s how I was found by some miners in a golf cart doing their rounds. Making sure the shaft was fully evacuated before activating the explosive charges they‘d planned to blast rock that day.

I’d had fallen in an uncovered shaft drilled to exhaust hazardous gas by the former operators of the mine twenty years ago. And the new company only took possession of the abandoned mine a month ago. After the price of ore went thru the roof. If it hadn’t I’d of died in the endless array of pitch black tunnels surely. Instead of waking up from a coma in the hospital a week later. To the sound of my crying little lady. Her tears of joy raining down on my bewildered gaunt looking face.