Spiral

From the inside, a spiral feels like progress. You keep walking, the view keeps changing, and you’d swear you were getting somewhere.

Look at it from above. The whole tunnel is one long curve that comes back past the same point every few hundred years, a little tighter each time. Every generation walks the same stretch, sees the same cog, and has the same argument about whether it’s getting closer.

It isn’t. But the curve tightens. Eventually it will be small enough to see across, and on that day everybody in the tunnel will see everybody else at once. I’ve been waiting for that day longer than I’ve waited for anything.