Vanishing points

Giving up on futurology

Neither the tunnel nor the light were metaphorical.

Six of us had strayed into what looked like a shortish chamber that burrowed through a koppie and we were walking beside train tracks towards the light at the far end of it. It was so dark, and the light was so bright, I thought it was an electric light in a round fitting we were walking towards.

If you look parallel lines that recede into the distance, the lines, from your perspective, seem to grow closer together at the top until – if you can see far enough – they join up. This is one of hundreds of photographs I have taken of vanishing points while I have been in Europe. PICTURE: Karin Schimke

We walked and walked and walked. I was almost eight. My brother was about eighteen months old. My grandfather, a tall and handsome man, was probably about the age I am now, and carried my brother on his shoulders all the way. My mother was 32. My two older cousins were not teens yet.

If a train comes along, someone said, put your back flat against the wall, or the train will suck you under its wheels. Did someone make that up or was that a real danger?

A train did come along and the six of us flattened ourselves against the rock wall.