celestialrhythms
He still had the house, the old chair, the salt and pepper shakers shaped like roosters and some of the children's books in the garage. But he was forgetting, slowly. Forgetting the children't shrieks, forgetting the dinner conversations, the clack of his wife's knitting or the sound of her singing in while she curled her hair.
The torch was the horrific burden of the tunnel. Before, they could stumble in the dark, tricking themselves that everything was all right amidst the blanket of clueless naievity. Now they saw the truth, with just enough light to illuminate the horrific tangle of shadows in which they were entangled.