LISA FREQUENTLY REMINDED Adam of Occam’s Razor. All things being equal, the simplest answer is likely the right answer. His eldest daughter was the scholar, writer, poet, and scientist in the family. Not especially interested in his field of fluid mechanics or hydrology beyond a basic knowledge, but she did believe in Occam’s Razor from the very first time she heard it. She cited it frequently, at the breakfast table, in the car, on vacations, and whenever anybody else in the family was in the midst of a puzzling situation.
So if Occam’s Razor was true, then Adam was dreaming. He was at home in bed in Minneapolis, dreaming of going to Congo with the Justice Corps and helping a village set up a water system. Or, he was already in Congo, mid-project, sleeping on a mat on Jolmy’s floor.
Or maybe he was still a teenager, living in his parents’ house, dreaming of his future.
Or maybe he was an old man, reflecting on what had been, what might have been.
Lisa, and maybe Occam, would say that he was caught up in a loopy nightmare.
And if that were true, then he could just sit down and bide his time until morning.
He reached up and probed the wound on his scalp where it had split open from the force of a baton in the hand of a revolutionary asshole.
Still tender. Wound closed into a long scab, lump still there, but much smaller. The scab was real. Definitely real. More real than any dream.
Even if it was a dream, it was not in his nature to just sit and wait to wake up.
He had to move.
He stood in the main tunnel, with myriad adjunct tunnels extending from it, like the teeth of a comb. “Which way?” he said out loud, as if the blue flame would answer him.
He held the light up high, looking for anomalies, anything that would sway his decision. But the tributary tunnels all seemed identical. All carved precisely—by the blue sizzling magic, he presumed—out of black rock. Every surface was the same, smooth and perfect as if melted from rock into glass. No ridges, no rivets, no edges, no flaws.
He could keep going forward in what he thought was the main tunnel, or he had an apparent infinite choice of side roads.
He kept going forward, along the main tunnel, the way he thought he was going before stopping to rest. He passed five, six, seven tunnel entrances, and then at the eighth, he paused.
Something was different here.
He listened.
Nothing.
He sniffed the air, but that wasn’t it, either. He wet a finger and held it up, but there was no breeze, fresh or otherwise.
He sang into it. “Hey there, ho there.”
His voice echoed as he expected it would. Close walls and ceiling, endlessly extending forward.
And yet, something was different. There was an alteration to the air, to the density of it. The other tunnels seemed dead, as if they were dead ends, or continued to wind around forever, but this one had something at the end of it.
Life.
He detected life.
With a deep breath, he headed into the tunnel, and to his amazement, it angled upward.
“Yes!” he said to the flame. “This is what we want. Closer to the surface. Ever closer to the sun, to the light, to grass and trees.”
He continued to sing the song he had taught Lisa to sing whenever they were hiking in the woods. Minnesota bears didn’t like being surprised by a silently marching family through their territory. So they sang, they sang loudly and in unison. “Hey there, ho there, hello you, bear there.”
Good lord, he hoped the magic wasn’t going to bring him a bear.
Despite being in fair to middling good shape, climbing a steep incline while singing took a toll, and Adam found that he needed to rest more and more frequently. Something at the end of this tunnel was calling him, but in that dreamish way, he couldn’t quite get to it. The tunnel seemed to lengthen, as if he was walking in water, or sand. His salty, perspiration-soaked clothes again chafed his crotch, his neck, under his arms.
His blistered feet were numb. For that, he was grateful. The time would come when they would shriek at him.
This was all so very dreamlike.
He remembered childhood nightmares where he’d been kidnapped or tied up and thrown into the trunk of a car, but his mouth had somehow been befuddled and he could not scream. Or the dream when he was running from bad guys, but no matter how fast he ran, he made no headway and they gained on him, relentlessly getting closer.
Horrible nightmares. Invariably, he woke up panting, sweating, heart pounding. It took a long time—sometimes hours—for his body to calm down, for him to consider going back to sleep.
And now, here he was, stuck in a real nightmare.
Then, ahead, he saw a brightening. A faint light—like daylight—glistened off the side of the tunnel.
He set the blue flame on his shoulder again so he didn’t have to carry it. He leaned forward and worked his screaming thigh and calf muscles up what now seemed to be a very steep ramp.
Daylight! Was it daylight? Could it be he was finally close to getting the hell out of here?
As he climbed, he tried to figure out where he was with respect to the makeshift prison cell, or with respect to the village.
There was no way he could know. If he came up in the middle of the jungle, hundreds of miles away from the village, that would be just fine with him. He would find a way home.
He would need to be normal size, of course, otherwise any one of a dozen jungle predators would make quick work of him.
But his size was a product of the underworld. Surely he would be a normal size when he got out of here.
And yet, he became this size while in the prison cell.
Adam shook these thoughts out of his head. It was better to think about being above ground, escaping this particular hell and getting home to the village.
If he came up in an area he didn’t know, he could dodge into the jungle, or behind shrubbery or trees if he saw the rebel jeeps coming toward him. He could hitchhike if he saw a farmer or a friendly face approach. It would be easy to get home, back to the village, he was sure of it, if only he was given the opportunity. If only he was above ground. If only he was back to his normal size.
He began to imagine the sun. The green plants. The soft earth. The raucous African wildlife. The unmistakable smell of the jungle, green and sweet, fetid and cloying, all at the same time. He imagined soaking his tortured feet in a cool stream. Hugging Jolmy and his wife and children. Being tended to by the village doctor. Telling the tale of his kidnapping. Regaling the village elders around the evening fire with his experiences of the trickster gods below.
He couldn’t wait.
He very slowly made his way up the hill, leaning far forward, one laboriously slow step at a time, heart pounding, breath coming hard, his headache back, starting to hammer.
The light brightened as he neared. The tunnel turned to the left, and with each rasping breath raking his throat, his lungs aching with the effort, thighs and calves cramping, Adam reached the turn.
He stopped, hands on thighs, gasping for air. When he caught his breath, he stood up and made the turn.
He stood, stunned, in full light.
Ahead of him spread an incredible vista. It looked exactly like the countryside of Ireland. Rolling green hills, pastures separated by low rock walls. Little stone houses dotted the landscape, one-lane country roads wound between houses, streams gurgled through the pastures where sheep grazed. Each house had a picturesque little garden.
Ireland! What? Ireland?
But there was no blue sky. No clouds. Some indistinct light source illuminated the scene.
Not Ireland. He was clearly not yet above ground.
Another trick.
This had to be a mirage. This was evidence of his madness. He had been suspecting it for some miles now.
He wanted nothing more than to run down through the fields, to roll in the grass, to pull fresh clothes off the clotheslines and breathe deeply of their fresh scent. He ached to have a cup of tea in one of the kitchens with whatever portly, aproned woman cared to brew him one. He would eat her warm, freshly-baked scone, slathered with sweet butter and homemade jam. He was eager to pull up a fresh carrot or pluck a ripe, red, sweet tomato and smash it into his mouth.
But between him and the little path that led down into this dreamscape stood a sturdy gate with shining brass bars, exactly like the one that had separated him from that mongoose.
That was so, so long ago.
Softly, in the distance, a church bell tolled.
Adam gripped the bars on the gate and tried to rattle it.
Firm. Solid.
So near and yet so far.
His knees weakened in despair and he sank to the ground, hands gripping the bars like those on a jail cell, eyes feasting on that which he could not have, longing for that which he had taken for granted his entire life.
He closed his eyes and “Please, God!” escaped from his lips. He took a breath and opened his eyes.
It was still there. Tantalizing.
Tormenting.
Not real.
He looked at the archaic locking mechanism of the gate. There was no knob, no lever, no keyhole. He had no idea how to open it.
He gripped the bars with both hands.
“Hey!” he shouted. “Hey! Help me!”
His voice bounced back to him muffled. His plea didn’t project down to the houses, to the little village beyond. He sounded as if he was shouting into a pillowcase.
Then a goose walked past the gate.
“Hey!” he shouted, but it did not pause, did not look at him.
Another followed it, and another, and soon there was a parade of geese, waddling single file past the gate.
Behind them came an old man with a tall walking stick, which he used to tend the geese and keep them going in a straight line. He wore a wool cap, heavy trousers, a shirt and jacket, and well worn heavy leather boots.
Adam almost forgot that he was small. This man was the same size as he. The geese proportional.
Had he grown back to a normal size in the tunnels?
No, a squash seed in his pocket was still the size of a sandwich.
“Hey,” Adam said.
The man turned and looked at him.
“You can see me? Can you help me? Can you open this gate?”
The man frowned, removed his wool cap and scratched his bald head. “Don’t know why I would want to do that,” he said.
“Please,” Adam said. “I’m hungry. I’m thirsty. I’ve been trapped in these—”
“There must be a reason for that,” the man said.
“No!” Adam beseeched him. “No reason. I was kidnapped by thugs, and escaped into the tunnel, but now I can’t get out of here.”
The man looked at him, cocked his head as if considering Adam’s plight. He put his hat back on and turned away.
“Let something in, let something out.” The man shook his head, then walked on, tapping his geese into line.
Did he mean something essential from his idyllic little picturesque town would escape? Or that Adam would be a corrupting influence?
Or was there more to it?
“Please!” Adam shouted. “Help me! I don’t belong here.”
Adam put his arms through the gate and desperately searched for the latch. There had to be a way to open this gate, but even as he found no locking mechanism on the either side, he knew that the only way would be with magic.
He could throw a card.
But is this what he wanted? Did he want to be in this weird, sunless, underground village? Did he want to waste a card opening this gate and going into this town which might, in fact, just be a mirage?
Another trick?
He sat on the ground, leaning a shoulder against the cool metal of the gate and feasted his eyes at the pastoral scene.
He and Chrissie had honeymooned in Ireland. Lisa was likely conceived there. Here. No, not here, not in this crazy place that made no sense. His precious Lisa had been conceived in the real Ireland.
What was this beautiful, yet deceptive and unattainable Irish countryside doing in this nightmare of a dream? Was it to make him appreciative of all that he had at home?
He was appreciative.
Was it to remind him of something he had not done, or left undone, or something he needed to atone for?
None of it made sense.
He and Chrissie had stayed in a series of farmhouse B&B’s, had driven the countryside, deliriously in love, drinking and eating with the locals in picturesque pubs, made love out in the open, made love in the farmhouses, made love in the rental car. It was a delicious honeymoon. Perfect in every way.
Except for that one thing.
Adam shook off that memory and gazed again on the landscape banquet laid before him.
He thought he even recognized this countryside. Thought he could see Mrs. O’Loughlin’s sheets hanging on her clothesline.
Why would there be an identical replica of that here in this hellish labyrinth?
And who was the man with the geese? Was his presence—the only person Adam could see—significant somehow?
Or was it just more nonsensical nightmare stuff?
He wondered what he had looked like to the old man. Was that man walking along the base of a cliff face with dozens of brass gates set into it? Did each side tunnel off the main one end up here?
The man didn’t seem surprised to see him. Had he seen others?
Had the town installed the gate to keep people like him from coming in?
He reached through the bars, stretched his arm as far as he could, and the whole landscape shuddered.
Wait. What?
He waved his hand and the landscape wavered.
He moved to the edge of the gate, put both hands through and felt around the ground, the sides, everything, as far as he could reach, straining, his face pushed hard into the bars of the gate.
Fabric. Something like canvas. He touched the edge, he moved it, and the entire village rippled like a flag.
This wasn’t real at all. This scene had no depth. It was all an optical illusion. The town had been painted on a canvas with exquisite detail and perspective, and was hanging, apparently, just out of Adam’s reach.
Still, smoke rose from chimneys. Water ran over rocks in the shallow stream. Mrs. O’Laughlin’s sheets moved in the breeze. He had heard the church bell.
Had the old man been walking his geese between the canvas façade and the tunnel entrance?
Adam looked around for a rock to throw, or a stick to poke it with, but the smooth glass tunnel was barren. All he had was the little piece of glass and a couple of giant pumpkin seeds in his pockets.
In a moment of inspiration, he removed his belt, wrapped one end around his hand and stuck his hand again through the bars.
He flicked the buckle.
It hit the painting. The whole town wavered.
“Let something in, let something out,” the old man had said.
What was behind that canvas stagecraft?
Adam got back to his feet, took a deep breath, trying to regain his pride after begging an old man for help. Disappointed beyond anything he had ever known before, he headed back down the ramp. He didn’t even cast a final glance back at the false memory of Ireland.
Going down was harder on his feet than coming up, and by the time he made it to the main tunnel, the blue light was again sputtering, his calf muscles were screaming, and his bare feet were raw with blisters.
But he had a plan.
If this tunnel wasn’t going to lead him out, surely the next tunnel would.
And if that tunnel didn’t pan out, then he would try the next. And the next. And the next, until he got out of here. It would work.
He knew it with a fool’s optimism.
It had to work. He was about out of options.
At the juncture, he turned left into the main tunnel, and the next tunnel entrance was barely six paces away, but the moment he turned into it, the blue light he carried on his shoulder winked out, and he had a very, very bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.
It wasn’t just that he had been plunged back into darkness—he was getting used to that. This was more visceral.
This might be the end of the line for him. This was a place that swallowed hope. This was a place that told the truth, revealed ugliness, celebrated all the wrong things.
Chances are, he belonged here.
He could back out, choose another tunnel, but this one called to him. The opportunity to admit all his faults, all his wrongs, to be punished, or to have to pay for them in a meaningful way, was somehow, suddenly, very attractive.
Wait. Was it attractive because he was already in the tunnel? Should he back out and give this a second thought?
No. It didn’t matter, because Adam knew immediately that this tunnel wasn’t going to lead him to the fake little Irish town, or whatever was at the end of that other tunnel.
This tunnel wasn’t going to lead him anywhere good.
And perhaps he deserved what he was about to get.