Tunnel Vision

Mama Jone has told the kids a hundred times not to go playing around in those “abandoned tunnels”. Well, come the hundred-and-first, an hour past their bedtime (to make sure Mama thinks they’re asleep), Fae the Fox, Wiles the Wolf, and Dirk the Drake clamber down the hill into that old mining site, just to spite. Fae wields a flashlight, Wiles wears a knapsack (‘cause he wanted to collect some quartz), and Dirk . . . Dirk has nothing; he didn’t want to come, really.

The fox beams her light on a cool-looking tunnel mouth with drippy stalactites and blank darkness. She and Wiles awe.

“Why don’t we take a look?” she says.

“Yeah, I’m down,” Wiles says.

“Let’s go home,” Dirk says.

They descend. Fae slashes through the dark with that “magic LED stick” of hers, uncovering bends in the tunnel, grooves in the wall, and—wait!—what made that crumbling sound? She turns to Wiles. Wiles shrugs. Dirk’s got goosebumps. They amble on, feeling an eerie uncertainty. The tunnel twists. They turn. Within a lit radius a lantern hangs from the ceiling ahead, swaying, as if collided with recently. Dirk tugs on Wiles’ shoulder—Fae’s too—but Wiles and Fae hurry on eagerly; the light is a bug zapper, drawing them in. . . .

They slow to a halt beneath it. It casts sparks, flashes, then flicks off. Cue the horror of the children:

One says, “What happened?”

Two says, “I don’t know!”

Three says, “Hold me!”

Fae whips the flashlight at random now; she’s spazzing out. Wiles chatters his teeth. Dirk hides behind Wiles, whimpering. What a scaredy-cat, thinks Wiles . . . but Wiles is scared too. They all are. The furs of the fox and the wolf prickle with horror, and the wings of the drake quiver, and—oh dear fur almighty!—the flashlight shines where the fox wishes it never shined: on two monstrous purple eyes, that delve into their skin like hot iron. The eyes blink; the sensation cools. They melt into the shadows.

From the shadows comes a snicker that goes: “Heh heh heh heh heh!”

The same place that snicker came from comes a snarl. The fox drops her flashlight: All but the beam on the wall goes black. She yelps. She hits the floor with a thud. The wolf snatches the flashlight, aims it at whatever the hell he’s supposed to be aiming it at, and—sweet scales of Joseph!—the flashlight reveals what the wolf wishes it never revealed: the top of a black and purple dragon, dangling the fox in the air from a paw. The dragon grins; he seems to like being in the spotlight.

“The m-m-myths are real!” cries the fox.

“Let her go!” cries the wolf.

“Don’t let go!” cries the drake to the wolf.

The wolf scrambles! He tries to, anyway. Alas, the scaredy-cat drake clings to him tight, laming his balance. They clumsily collapse to the floor. The flashlight clinks. Rolls to the wall. Clicks off. All’s black. The fox makes makes muffled cries as she’s stuffed in the dragon’s mouth. The dragon takes a gruesome gulp, giving a grateful rumble from his throat that rolls through the tunnel, shivering spines, shaking debris from the ceiling, demoralizing the fox and wolf. He huffs a sated sigh: Flame and cloud of purple are exhausted, briefly illuminating the hall. Before the light fizzles, the fox and wolf even glimpse him rubbing a fussy shape in his gut that looks like. . . .

No, they can’t dwell it. They stand. They run. Hope seems to be in their grasp!, until they realize they can’t see and run into a wall. The dragon does a leisurely two-step walk to where his meals lay then licks his chops and mmmmms and pulls from his neck pocket a napkin that says, “Sini”, then wraps the napkin round his neck. One of his paws stomps down on the drake’s tail. The other lifts the wolf up to his maw. His fat slobbery tongue hangs out and pendulates excitedly. A ghastly breath of dragon smacks the wolf in the face! The wolf moans and faints (mind you, not because he is horny like the narrator).

Cue the drumroll. Once the imaginary snares finish, the dragon tosses the live wolf into the air—the opening act! Be amazed as He catches him in his mouth, shrieking, spasming, the whole kebab, then swallows him simply as the swallow soars. A feisty bulge is conveyed down the throat to the stomach: Listen to that stomach groan and croak then moan—abrakadabra!

The scaredy-cat drake is pale as his scales allow. He whines, curled up in a ball: He doesn’t seem to appreciate the practice the black and purple has put to his performance (tsk tsk). The black and purple must thus prove to him first-hand how grueling the work of a carnie: He hefts the drake by the throat. The drake fasts from oxygen, as he is guided above the dragon’s eager mouth. The dragon slurps his back, suckles his feet, then lets go. Then, he is gone, blam: Down the maw, down the jaws—bibbidi bobbidi, alakazam!

The lantern flicks back on. Sini stands with a full belly beneath it. He unwraps the napkin round his neck and puts it back in his neck pocket then stands on his hind legs and squeezes his gut with his arms, releasing a happy growl! He falls to all-fours, his stomach stirring noisily. He taps his chest twice. He cocks back his head and fills his lungs then belches monstrously:

“HEH-RRRRRR-T!”

Tonight, Sini finds himself past his bedtime, having played with the children all night long.

He remembers his last encounter with Mama Jone, when Mama Jone brought him a juicy slab of meat (like she always did) and told him “Now don’t you go eating my children when they sneak out and explore the tunnels”, last night, for the hundredth time.

This hundred-and-first time, Sini reckoned he was “fed up” with letting his meals slip by; tunnel vision gets the best of us all, wouldn’t you agree? He lays on his belly and rests his eyes, pondering whether to let the children live to explore the tunnels a hundred-and-second time. He laughs.

“Just don’t tell your mama about any of this, alright?”