SUZANNE SAMPLES Passing Through

SUZANNE SAMPLES | PASSING THROUGH

The hungry darkness of Tunnel Number 12 swallows me like the anesthesia before my craniotomy three years ago. I don’t remember anything from the medically induced blackness, but similarly to how I feel now, I could not escape. For eight hours, I was trapped in the nothingness of circuit oscillations and obscure memory loss.

I woke up terminal.

The surgeon told me generally 11-13 months, but here I am, years later, hiking through a deserted, ink-drenched corridor four miles from my hometown.

I did not want to move back, but I had no choice. Diagnosed in my mid-30s, I could explore hospice options or move in with my aging parents and pretend I was caring for them instead of the other way around.

Hood up to protect my head, I am halfway through Tunnel Number 12 when I realize I cannot move my bad foot.

But still.

I believe the supernatural can occur in these passages.

I believe I can enter disconnected, disturbed and emerge on the other side, bare limbed and brave.

I believe the ghosts of passengers long gone can whisper well wishes and encouragements.

You have more time. Now just breathe. We aren’t ready for you yet.

I had no symptoms before the devastating discovery of my tumor.

Instead, I sat inputting final grades at a café as a seizure rolled up my leg like the trains that once passed through these gaping, open-mouthed channels.

In the mid-1900s, caravans brought supplies to this foggy, middle-of-nowhere town. Without this method of transportation, those who came before me would have frozen or lost the fat from their bones and resembled the native white-tailed deer in a starving season, their ribs prodding through sickly taupe skin with mangled fur shed on snow long ago.

But presently, I stand centered in Tunnel Number 12, unable to move.

My right leg, paralyzed for three months after the seizure, seemed to petrify when, seconds ago, I stepped into a puddle and became part of the stony structure.

I feel like a ghost train might barrel through the opening, the whistling apparition knocking over the crumbling statue of my suddenly frail body.

Recently, I have been moving my leg with ease, but right now, fear has driven me back to that day on the table when the last words I heard were a nurse saying, My name is Teddy. The surgeon is ready for you. In through your nose and out through your mouth. I’m going to take care of you.

I didn’t want to step onto the streets when I first moved back here; I didn’t want people who once knew me as a skilled, competitive dancer to witness me dragging my leg behind me like an unlaced ballet slipper as I practiced walking and tried to become myself again.

But in these tunnels, I could develop my stride, and no one could study me.

No one could watch.

No one could criticize or markdown my scores whenever I fell.

I crashed all the time. I tore my rotator cuff because I collapsed in the hospital while the nurses assisted other patients with their pissing and shitting. I injured my arm when I fell in my old apartment after trying to catch some keys I dropped. I tripped and bloodied my knee on the sidewalk as I carelessly stumbled over a slightly raised lip no one else noticed.

Now I needed a vicissitude of fortune, a perfect plié in the darkness. I needed proof of healing and forgiving power instead of ultimate weakness. I needed cryptic symbols that surely, I was leaping back to life.

These tunnels gave me those signs.

I trudged through these human-made shunts four times a week. The challenge exhilarated me. My doctors never expected me to leave a wheelchair? I proved them wrong by walking unassisted to their offices for my follow-up appointments. Oh, I should be homebound and only leave my bed for emergencies? I defied expectations and traipsed through these ghastly, lightless fat pockets that filled with fog on autumn nights. Was I scared? No.

I had been through far worse.

The dead could not frighten me.

I had been there and back.

And then, I am stuck.

And then, I am terrified. And then, I am silent.

A nurse hissed through her teeth at me: Wake up, Susan. You need to answer me. I don’t answer her because my name is not Susan. My name is Suzanne. I refuse to say anything, and I feel like everyone hates me.

Susan Susan Susan.

I am awake. I am alive. I am annoyed.

Gone was the friendly nurse who told me to breathe and promised to take care of me.

I am not allowed to move, even if I could.

I have never liked people telling me what to do.

When I fell in the hospital bathroom, I was alone. I memorized the buttons the nurse pushed when she and the assistant dropped me into my adjustable shell for the next month.

As a kid, those flashing memory button games were never my style—and after the surgeon removed a chunk of my left frontal lobe to ensure he got all of the tumor, my short-term memory was fucked—but this was a matter of survival.

I needed to explore.

I needed to look around.

I needed to test my leg.

Button on the left, switch on the top, below the bed twice, and one on the right I could barely reach because of the paralysis.

Unlike those childhood flashing memory games, there was silence when my left foot hit the floor.

Silence meant I won.

I did not have any mobility aids yet because I was not permitted to move from the bed; my yellow FALL RISK bracelet and purple socks signified this.

However, the hospital staff trusted me.

Before I got up, I had done nothing to dissuade them from my allegiance to their stringent rules and regulations. Somehow, although my entire right side remained stiffly paralyzed, I made it to my destination: the stingy Copen blue bathroom.

I did not tumble because of the paralysis; darkness got me in the end.

Falling is the only option.

The best choice.

The only way to escape this quagmire.

I don’t want to ruin my sweatpants, but it’s just mud and possibly animal dung.

I cannot survive forever in Tunnel Number 12.

I feel like a spirit.

My cellphone flashlight is nothing more than a pinprick. Is this how my brain looked to my surgeon? How much could he see? I tried to watch craniotomies on YouTube, but I couldn’t get past the initial incision; I did not have the stomach.

After a single semester off work, I returned to teaching. Sure, I still had to complete chemo and had physical, occupational, and speech therapy, but I needed money. As a single woman, I couldn’t sit in my apartment until I died.

So, I moved home, began teaching online, and exploring tunnels in my spare time.

When I fall in Tunnel Number 12 on purpose, I forget to protect my hands. I had collapsed before on these trails, and the results were heinous. I picked pebbles out of my palms for weeks and nursed an infected knee. A truck nearly ran me over. Did they see me and not care? I’m not sure. I rolled into a ditch and didn’t move until the vehicle drove away.

And when I could no longer hear the motor, I told myself in through your nose and out through your mouth. You just have to breathe.

I did not want to become another casualty of these trails, of these tunnels.

I had improved my strength and mobility, and now I could slump to the ground in this cavernous darkness and still make my way out of here on my own.

I am not sure if my palms land in equine shit or mud. Many people ride horses through the tunnels, but they are told to dismount before entering. Too often, the horses get spooked and toss the riders.

Once my knees hit the earth, I finally exhale. I roll to my ass and listen to the lonely drips of water splash into puddles. I remove my hood so I might feel less dizzy, but nothing helps. I am engulfed by these endless shadows and have no idea which direction is out. I no longer care about the mess on my sweatpants; I just want to sit here and feel less lightheaded.

I speak.

Visit me, ghosts, I taunt. Come and find me. I’ve always believed in the paranormal. There’s far too much out there we just don’t know. At this point, I would welcome an apparition. Perhaps a vision would shepherd me out of here. If you don’t want to leave, at least guide me toward some light.

My voice eerily echoes.

As if I am a cavewoman looking to the walls for a story, I suddenly hallucinate petroglyphs forming before me.

A woman smiles with her friends, all of them at the ballet barre in first position. In the next iteration, a woman stands in front of people seated at writing desks. Finally, the same woman sits at a table with two cats and a dog at her feet.

The right foot is twisted and limp, like a disinterested lover.

As I stare at the story in stone, the drawing of the woman elevates from the tunnel wall and shifts into a pale silhouette. Her friends remain engraved, but she lifts from the markings and resembles a shape made from fancy cigarette smoke. She morphs into a fully fleshed human and stares back at me with passionate intensity.

I recognize this bright smile she gives me before everything happened.

I recognize the way she shakes, the way her eyes refuse to blink when the surgeon says unfortunately.

I recognize the look of horror when she pulls hair from its roots and holds balls of brunette strands in her small hands.

And then, as if I am waking from a nightmare, the woman disappears like thin whisps of smoke from a locomotion long gone.

Alone in Tunnel Number 12, I convince myself to stand: palms on the ground and butt toward the drizzling ceiling, my bare head exposed and wet. I inch my hands closer to my feet until I can prop myself up. I still can’t see, but I have shaken the feeling of stiffness away.

I am muddy but alive, as far as I can tell.

When I am upright, I shuffle toward nothing with my hands in front of me until I hit stone. I do not have gloves, but as long as I am moving, I will not freeze and remain unthawed until spring.

Pressed against the structure, I move my feet just as I did in physical therapy, just as I did as a child in dance classes.

One, two, step-ball-change, one, two, step-ball-change. I no longer leap or tour jeté. I am exhausted. My breath sounds like a faraway train whistle through my teeth. This sound echoes back to me: Wake up, Suzanne. You have to wake up. The journey out takes longer than I planned, but finally, I see the sun.

I wonder: When I die, will I return to Tunnel Number 12? Will I come back to that which has healed me? Will this eventually be my last stop?

I don’t plan on staying here; I am merely a specter.

Will you walk right through me on a haunted hike? Will you hear my lonesome whistle when you see the light stretching toward the end? Will you know about me at all?

The dripping water will remind you: I was once here, too. I once belonged in this tunnel. I was once shrouded in this darkness, afraid to move.

I will say to you: You have more time. Now just breathe. We aren’t ready for you yet.

I was once passing through.