What would my manhole look like? Would it be surrounded by concrete or green soft grass? Would it be rusty, deep black or gray? Is it small or big, round or square? But what’s inside my manhole? What am I hiding underneath it?
There are so many questions for something so simple. The truth is that I am making all these questions in order not to look inside my manhole. Is in front of me and I have no desire to look upon it, for I don’t wish to pull its top. I do not want to know what monsters or strange beings will crawl out of it. I fear a shadow is residing inside that manhole and that it will consume me if I let it out. It should stay there!
But wait! What if it just goes away? What if this shadow, cloaked in a purple fear, leaves when I free it from the prison I have kept it all these years? It’s a chance I have to take. I will do it! I will open that manhole and let it be free. I will let it be transformed into hope. For in the shadows of my fears my hope has become a black sad being. Kept from the light inside a manhole I created for it. I will let it be free so it can grow by my side. I will let it transform me into a new person with out fears and with new hopes and let it teach me to be brave.
I open the manhole with a little difficulty for it is a small one. Put the iron oval top aside and waited for the shadow to come out. It is a little afraid to come out for the rays of the sun are too bright and its eyes are accustomed to the darkness. After a while it came out and stood in front of me looking straight to my eyes. Its eyes were as black as the night as its hole body was. Looking at it more closely I realize it was me.
We stood there in front of each other waiting for words to be spoken. But all that came out was a tear drop from my eyes and a smile from the shadows lips.
This short story was made for an excersise for Soul Food Café
