About Nude Not Naked

I am running in a dark tunnel. My feet feel balmy against the cold uneven ground. There is a sense of urgency. The air is thin. I am gasping for a breath of air. There is hardly any. My lungs are chocking for fresh air but there is none. I am still running in the tunnel.

I cannot turn around and run. I came from there and it was as dark as it is now, if not darker. It was nowhere. So I can only run forward. And so I run. I am running as hard as my legs can take me. I am running forward with my feet bare and my hands feeling my way where my eyes cannot see.

It must been 10 minutes since I woke up in this black hole of a tunnel. There is nothing in here except for the occasional sound of a soft breeze. I must run towards the soft breeze. It must lead me somewhere, right? Maybe the soft breeze originates from a river or a waterfall.

It does not matter if it was a river or a waterfall. I just want a drop of water. My throat is feeling parched. Argh! My right foot brushed against a rock and it is feeling cooler by the minute. Bloody hell, my damn foot is bleeding. I am in the middle of nowhere and I do not know what is ahead.

Where am I? Yes, I ask myself that as each minute passes by. My heart is beating so fast that I feel it is almost bursting ahead of me. Pearls of sweat are running down my chin. I am about to scream. A banging pain against my left temple. Grabbing the hem of my blouse, I rubbed it on my back. I am drying sweat from between my cleavage and under my breasts.

I am about to cry. What is it that I am seeing? My eyes are seeing a tiny speckle of light. I see a white light shining at the end of the tunnel. It must be the end of this darkness. It must be what separates me from the unknown and the known. It has to be. There is light just ahead of me and I can taste the victory on the tip of my tongue. I pick myself from the cold ground and start running again. I must have fell a dozen times because my knees are feeling sore. But I keep running and picking myself up to run again because I can see the light. It is ahead of me and it feels good to see the light.

This is the dash towards victory. My dash towards victory. This is the moment that everyone is waiting for. The defining moment of being a winner or a loser.

I must be running for more than 15 minutes by now. The light is not getting any bigger. It is still the same small speckle I saw 15 minutes ago, when my hope was soaring.

I am still running in the tunnel and I do not know where I am going. I can see the light and I feel like I am almost there. But the light is running away from me. The closer I run towards it, the further I feel the light source is. I am trying hard. God knows that I have. I am pushing myself. I ran. I run. I am still running but the light is not any closer than it was 5 minutes ago. Or two days ago. Or even a month ago. As a matter of fact, the light seems to run at the same pace as me and in the same direction.

One last gasp for fresh air. My lungs are collapsing. I guess I cannot win. Not today anyway.