Underground
The
overhead fluorescents, nearing the end of their useful lives, sparked fitfully,
washing the station in occasional dim bursts of light. Cracks, clots of dirt
and crumpled garbage gave the floor its own strange miniature topology, and the
rusted husks of a few vending machines tilted sadly against one wall, twisted
beyond recognition or utility.
This stop was
abandoned years ago, and the city no longer cared who came here. The trains
never stopped; they came roaring past, windowless and bulletproof,
in a rush of fetid air and swirling debris that was still somehow invigorating.
There
was nothing left but newspapers, dust, twisted metal and paint. If your eyes
were particularly good, like mine, you can make out the faded outline of an
advertisement, forgotten now, not even worth defacing, on the opposite side of
the tracks. Nothing to do, nothing to steal.
Almost nothing.
I stood on that platform, breathing deeply.
The air was filled with a scent, a metallic acid sweetness, which to me in my
weakened state was like perfume. Sweat and urine, and
something else— rich and warm, human. The scent of a
heart beating. A man was slumped in one corner of the station, awash in
newspapers, one grey hand clutching a paper-bagged bottle. Wisps of white hair
waved with every exhalation of the dying air vents, back and forth, like tiny
undersea creatures. His outline wavered in the erratic pale flickering of the
lights overhead, masking his features. No one, just a man, a
faceless husk of a man, broken like everything else down here.
Nobody
would miss him.
A shiver, deep inside.
You can have it, nobody's around, just take it
I bit
my lip, drawing blood, and the voice stilled.
I had intended to wait here until it was almost
time, but now that didn't seem like such a good idea.
I knew what would happen.
No witnesses.
The
edge of the platform drew me. I always walk on the edge of a subway platform,
right along the edge, whenever I can. I get a kick out of looking down from the
light into the coffin darkness of the tracks below. Sometimes I have to hold
myself back, when the trains finally come. The urge to jump into the abyss, to
meet the train in its own element, is at times so very tempting. If a train
came now, I wondered, would I move?
Some
kind of survival instinct lives on in me, and directed my feet away from the
platform edge, back into the station. I could feel the old man, even from where
he sat, so far away from me; desire intensified my awareness of him until he
was everywhere. I stuffed my shaking hands into my pockets and, ignoring the
red tide singing do it, feel good, do it
in my veins, I gritted my teeth and walked up, out, away from temptation.
Copyright
Elizabeth Bent 2005