It was a wind through a tunnel. Something narrow and cold. I know it was cold like steel, or silver. The color was silver, and even in the dark, the walls glowed and shone. Something burnished and almost alive. The wind was a rush. Like water in a valley, it was pushed into and through this passageway. Blowing with a steady flow, and it wasn’t until i stood there for a while that i noticed the changes in the wind.

It started out that i noticed the hairs on my arms. They would blow, and then for a brief moment, slowly rise a tiny fraction. Then, back to where they were. This is when i realized that the wind wasn’t constant. The tunnel was breathing. Or the wind was breathing and the tunnel was channeling the breath by me. Either way, it was subtle and only in my stillness did i notice the changes.

I remembered as a child i stood on a hillside that had been mined years before. The mountain was full of holes where people had dug and dug. I was climbing on the mountain, and remember finding a hole in the ground. Just a tiny hole, maybe a foot across. I would have walked by it without noticing, except the wind coming out of it made this sound. Like a soft moaning noise. The wind was coming from inside the mountain. It was a chimney for the mines below, to carry air into the mine, and blow the spent air into the mountain.

I haven’t thought of that hole, and that wind, in so long. I remember standing on the side of the hole, and staring down into the dark, with my hand over the hole, feeling the wind. I was frozen then, and I am frozen now.

This is the first time i remember being a child. That means i must be an adult now, if i remember being a child before? I know that I seem to be adult sized here in bed. I know that I must be fully grown to know the things i know. I know this for sure, but I don’t remember being a child. Except this memory now, i remember that so well. Who dug that chimney? What did the people in the mine feel when they stood benieth the space in the mountain where the air was focused on escaping.

Now after years, i stood again on this metal surface, and it brought me back in time and i remember. I remember being small. And i know that it seems real, and seems like me. This place i am now is like standing in that tunnel. Why are the only colors i can see in the dark glowing silver? How can i see glowing in the dark? I am sure it is dark. I know light from dark at least, and I know my eyes are open now. How long have we changed to have the sense of wind on our arms to give us this information, even when everything else is hidden. To stop and know the motion of wind, to know that the air itself breaths sometimes, and changes in such subtle ways.