Choices

Martin woke. An unusual circumstance, wakening is, especially since Martin did not remember falling asleep. The last thing he could remember was sitting in philosophy class, listening to a fellow student espousing a critical reading of Duns Scotus.

But there Martin was, waking up. Opening his eyes, he did not recognize his surroundings. Granted, there was not much to recognize, as the floor, walls and ceiling were all stark white and Martin wore only his tighty whiteys. Turning to his right, Martin identified his clothes, nicely folded in a stack on the floor. Rubbing his face, Martin looked up, to be momentarily startled by the presence of a very unkempt, disheveled and generally grubby old man, his hands wrapped in bloody bandages, sitting on a folding chair, looking at him. “Hello Martin”, the old man said. “Uh, hello back,” Martin responded, not wanting to be rude. “The way I see it”, the old man continued, “you have two choices. You can crawl through tube number one or through tube number two.” Martin merely looked at the old man, completely perplexed.

Turning to his left, the lights came on. Martin immediately recognized two rather long fiberglass “tubes”, approximately 24 inches in diameter. Looking back to his left, the old man continued. “The real rub here though is that neither tube offers a pleasant trip. The first tube is nearly half full of animal excrement and tube number two has about six inches of broken glass in it. The way I see, you’re pretty much stuck with unpleasant one or unpleasant two. Though, once you get out the other end of the tube, you can exit the door to get outside, which, I’m assuming you want.”

Martin looked at the old man for a moment then looked back at the tubes. “That's all I’m saying, and I’m not saying anymore.” He sat for quite a while, deep in confusion and uncertain as to what to do. Then it dawned on him. Martin stood up, put on his clothes, his typical white t-shirt, blue jeans, and sneakers. He then stepped up on top of the two tubes, walked the length and left the room.