anti:freeze

If you know me well (and few people do), you know I avoid tunnels, caves, and enclosed spaces of all kinds. I ride subways, but only after I try to find a bus. I book the aisle seat. I stay away from basements and cellars.

Sometimes, I dream about Spook Cave in northern Iowa. My grandmother and I took a tour boat ride through the cave once. Memories come in fragments and flashes: lantern light on a scarred wrist, a musty whiff of chill air, a hole in my gums where my incisor fell out. The inside of that gum hole felt like the sides of Spook Cave - rough and raw, fleshy and forbidden.

In my dreams, I confuse the cave with memories of a Disneyworld ride. I remember a belt across my lap and the bar I gripped in a cold sweat. Our carriage seemed to float through the dark. And in the dark: a giant spinning globe, inches from my head, that I tried to reach out and push; It's a Small World playing faint in the background, like a music box muffled under a pillow; the girl seated directly in front of me, crying. Or maybe that was me crying?

When I was in Paris, I loved the Metro. For a girl from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the trains were exotic and strange. I loved the freedom - how I could ride vast distances across the city, driver's license or not. But every time I descended the stairs, I felt a chill on the back of my neck. My scalp tingled. I felt vaguely like I was submitting to some uknown force, walking willingly into danger. Into a trap.

But then, traps exist above ground, too. I avoid all rides where I must be belted in.

So when I think about the bombs in London, I think about those tunnels. What happens when an explosion blows up in a tight space? What terrible memories come to the survivors, in their dreams? (That is, if they can sleep at all.)