TUNNEL IN A TUNNEL IN A TUNNEL (IN AN EYE)

Along the vent again the tunnel opened further ahead into two. Soon the two made four, and four made eight, and so on. Each tunnel looked the same. At each the father chose by which one seemed to need him. Laughing harder. Gasping. Blue balloons. His scalp skin crisping hard around his head.

At sudden nodules in the network, the father found holes where he could see back into the house—the living room, the upstairs hallway—the walls there had been painted over black—in some rooms orange or yellow—screaming neon—though here the vents went so thin he could not fit through them, not even partly, just his arms. Some rooms had been filled with dirt or smoke or foaming. Some rooms were full of skin—other families, people, bodies—smushed. One hole into one very far room was the exact same size as his eye—through the hole he could see another small eye seeing. His eye. Light.

The tunnels unfurled on. The ceilings raised or floors grew lower. He could hunch, then he could stand. Soon the walls were so high and far apart he could not feel them at all. The floor beneath him made of sand. In his testicles a transient tingling, like someone crawling through an opening in him, through his guts and up his body, spreading out and up and on among his blood. There was more of him than ever.