THE COPPER CHUTE CURVES SHARPLY TO THE LEFT. The turn sandwiches me against the right-hand side of the pipe, turns me around. Then it whips to the right and I’m thrown against the far wall.
Now I’m sliding on my side, now my stomach. Vomit rises in my throat as I whip round and round. The tube coils like a hose and I tumble down its length.
Too fast. Oh god. I’m falling too fast.
My windbreaker flaps behind me, a loose flag. My hat blows off as I tumble. I’m going to die. Now what kind of hell lets you escape by dying?
But I’m not in hell. I’m in a building, a building used for god only knows, with human-sized copper pipes. Maybe I’m in the world’s biggest garbage chute on my way to the trash compactor. Or maybe I’m in a bizarre recycling plant, about to be crushed into a Coca-Cola bottle. Or—I think back to the hoofprint—a meat processing plant, and there’s a goddamn thresher right below me.
A small, more reasonable part of my mind wonders how a meat plant would expect any ungulate to make the climb I just did. That part is quickly squashed by my panicking body anticipating Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace.
I throw my arms and feet out to slow my descent, but my palms are greased with sweat and can’t find purchase. The soles of my shoes prove too stripped to catch hold. I try again, and succeed—but only for a moment. Then my arms are wrenched back and I continue to plummet.
I starfish out with all limbs, lock my knees and elbows to brace myself against the tube. I rebel against gravity, but the decline is too steep. Again, I slide further down the pipe, now spilling forward, now tumbling headlong. I curve my fingers into claws and scrabble at the copper walls around me.
My right hand catches on something sharp as I fall. It cuts through the scarf and rips my already bruised hand open across the palm. I scream, hug my injured limb to my stomach, and feel warm blood begin soaking through the sleeve.
The scarf is lost—caught on a jagged nail or piece of pipe halfway down the chute.
I don’t try to catch myself again. I curl myself into a ball. I shut my eyes as I Jack and Jill down the hill towards whatever gruesome end awaits me.
The truth is far gentler than my imagination. The pipe gradually levels out, tempering my plummet. The curve straightens and I find myself now skidding, now rolling, along the hard copper. I slide for a few moments more, and then, at last, the metal’s friction puts a stop to my fall.
I feel the gentle touch of my silly cowboy hat as it slides down after me and rests against my back.
I peek at my surroundings. I’m still in the copper chute.
I lie on my back for a time, drink the penny-scented air, marvel that I’m alive. I gingerly pull my hand from my stomach and see that fear and surprise deceived me—the cut across my palm is long, but shallow, and the bleeding has almost stopped already. I’m all right.
And, with any luck, I’m almost out.
Some ten or twenty metres away, I see the exit to this pipeline. White light tempts me towards that gaping mouth. I crawl forward, favoring my left hand, as quickly as my battered body allows.
The opening yawns ever wider, but as I get nearer I slow down. I see that white walls are through that opening. Only white walls. And as I crawl to the lip of the tunnel’s exit, I hear the familiar hum of those goddamn fluorescent lights.
The maze is welcoming me back.