A man of 55 limped up the tunnel with a rock in his trembling hands. He was a slave, a slave who was now free, his overseer had given him a rock commanding the man to keep it by his side until he died, to remind him of the cruel life he lived surrounded by rock walls.
'The last command you ought to follow!' he had boomed as the man was shoved like an urchin towards the tunnel passage.
The man had never had a name, he was born in these tunnels, his Ma died after giving birth, his father died from breathing too much dust into his tired lungs. So the overseer just called him 'you'.
He was scared. He had to admit, he knew nothing of the surface, the..what did the overseer once say?...ah...the sun. yes, that was it.
But his leg was bad. He was going to face a world broken with no home to return to from now on. So he continued to hobble up the rocky slant on his feet pregnant with cuts from small rocks.
There...yes there. there was light, he thought it might be a lantern, but it was brighter then any lantern...and, what was that sound, a sharp happy tune from some kind of animal he learnt about in his youth. But he couldn't remember. The man started to get excited, his brown eyes beaming with wonder through his black mess of hair. So he moved a little faster...until...until he reached the top.
A sharp sensation came to his eyes before the tears as he looked at what he thought might be the sun, a golden disk in the blue sky with clouds so white. His eyes continued to sting until he looked away from the light of it, with wonder in his eyes he looked to the ground...oh the ground, was lush, was...he didn't know the colour, but he welcomed it's oddity. The sound that he had heard was from an animal sitting on a long limped brown thing with the same odd colour of the soft ground sitting above the thing. The animal itself was odd..but then he remember it was what some folks in the mines called birds. Then he smiled, beautiful. He went to dark to beautiful, he began to laugh. a strangled sound fallen from his mouth from the lack of water.
Beside the birds odd home, there was a divide in the ground, it looked familiar, because it was made up of tiny rocks, he thought it might be some sort of passage so he stepped onto it.
'I think it's a passage. But to what I do not know"
Before he took a step he turned, looking at the tunnel that led to his home, clenching the rock in his hand. It was a home, yes, but he did not want to remember it, it was cruel, it was unkind. He began to sob when he threw the rock back into the tunnel where he stood on the path.
Then he turned back around, a man of 55 crying his heart out as he hobbled down the path, happy that he could move on, even with his bad leg.
