The Tunnel

I’M 18 YEARS old the first time I hear about the train tunnel. I’m a freshman living in the dorms on the University of Portland campus. It’s finals week and my hallmate Tami and I have been studying a lot and we really need a break. So we collectively decide—I promise you it was a collective decision—to go check out the train tunnel that the guys’ cross country team had been telling us about. Earlier that semester, they had run all the way through it. They said it was a really big rush.

It’s 11 p.m. and we could use a big rush.

So we take off running down Willamette Boulevard and before long we’re heading down the bluff. It’s December in Portland, so it’s raining and it’s really slippery, but we make our way down to the train tracks along the river. Then we follow them to the tunnel. When I first lay eyes on the tunnel, I’m struck by a couple of things. One: it is really narrow. There is only room for one train to be going through this thing at a time, no other space. And the second thing is: it’s really, really dark. We didn’t have headlamps, and we can’t really even tell how long it is. Maybe it’s a football field long, maybe it’s a mile long. We also have no idea where it’s actually going to dump us out.

But I don’t say any of these things out loud. Tami and I just nod at each other and center ourselves on the track and start running into the tunnel.

Once we enter the tunnel there is one thing that we can see. Up ahead there’s a stable white light. I remember thinking: at least we have something to aim toward.

We’re running for two or three minutes when the white light turns red. But before Tami and I can even wonder why it would turn red, we hear the train rumbling on the tracks behind us. And then we hear the horn.

Tami and I scream. We start running deeper into the tunnel, toward the now-red light. Tami is a really fast runner, much faster than I am, so before I know it, she’s put a lot of distance on me. She must feel me dropping back, because she yells into the darkness, “Run, Kendra! We’re gonna die!”

But I can’t keep up. Her voice is getting farther and farther away from me and the train is getting closer and closer.

I realize I’m not going to be able to outrun this train.

I yell up to Tami, “We’re not gonna make it! You gotta lie down!”

She yells back, “Don’t give up on me!” In the very last second before the train crushes me, I dive down to the side of the track. I make myself as small as I can in the space between the tunnel wall and the track. The train is elevated just enough on its wheels that I can fit safely in that tiny space. And then the thunder comes. The train is barreling through the tunnel, over the top of my head, and I am too scared to even take a big breath because I’m worried that the expansion of my lungs will make me even just a little bit wider and that the train will rip me from bottom to top.

The train thunders over me for what feels like an eternity.

And then the thunder stops. The train is out the other end of the tunnel. I lie there, afraid to say Tami’s name, afraid she tried to outrun it and didn’t make it.

I call out for her. I say her name like a question, “Tami?”

After several heartbeats, she says, “Kendra.” She pauses, and then, “I peed my pants.”

We hug and we cry and we limp our way out of the tunnel. We limp back to campus the long way.

I never set foot in that train tunnel again, but I came to find out later that it’s a mile long. A very dark mile. But there’s a bright side to this very dark tunnel. It’s found in what I learned in that split-second decision that I chose to lie down. In the years since that night, there have been a lot of times when I’ve felt like the world was going to crush me, and instead of trying to outrun it—whatever “it” might mean, sometimes grief, sometimes heartache—I remember that I can lie down and let the thunder overcome me. Eventually, the thunder will stop, and I’ll be able to stand up again.

In that tunnel, I learned that lying down is not always giving up. Sometimes it’s the only way to survive.

KENDRA GOFFREDO ’02 originally told this true story live on stage at The Moth, where she was crowned StorySlam champion. Find the performance at tinyurl.com/PilotTunnel.