It starts with a phone call. The shrill shriek that demands attention and can’t be ignored. Out, it’s the opposite of in, but isn’t going out just going in someplace else? The exchange of one in for another in, except the other in charges more and more to be there. A frantic dash and shabby clothes pulled on that once looked good, but now cause a vague sense of unease. A glance down at shoes covered in layers of other times spent out. Each layer of stains like an archaeological strata. One night with chips, another with pizza maybe even a kebab and all of them filled with a vague sense of regret.
Out the door wondering why. Is this worth it anymore? In the silence of a quiet night’s walk to the underground the beauty of the night becomes apparent. The darkness adding romance and mystery to a landscape that is otherwise as well known as the back of the hand. Mostly the journey is a series of steps and glimpses of the front of the feet. Nothing more than a five foot radius that becomes the whole of the world and a sum of reality. With every journey like this the silence and the stillness cause the head to lift and look at the sky and the stars. Trees lining the road swaying softly in a breeze that makes the night fresh with a universe of possibility. That’s the thing about out, it takes those possibilities and locks them down until there is only one course of action. The stars glitter and blink in a sky that seems to be forever, the beauty of it makes breath shudder and stop in the chest. Heart speeds up and for a moment it’s like being one with everything. Happiness and well being swelling like a fragile bubble, doomed from birth to burst.
The underground yawns open like a tired broken toothed mouth. Swallowing in lives and spitting out bad choices like rotten teeth. It’s the mood swing you see. A moment ago everything was clean and good and now with the possibility of the journey’s end in mind it has all swung back to what it was before. A sense of dread and wondering how to fill up that hour or two before whatever is to hand numbs the senses and makes it all seem okay again. Down stairs that are worn and cracked and that have probably been there longer than those feet have trodden the earth. Onto a platform where other figures huddle by themselves and pull their coats tighter against the dank chill that bites exposed skin. Then in the distance a dull quiet roar that gets louder, like a beast it rattles and rages against the unfairness of its cage. At the denial of possibility and the futility of roaming the same path over and over again in a parody of Sisyphus. The roar becomes almost unbearable and the doors open to a sweaty aggression as the previous riders tumble out and stagger off blinking against a too harsh light. Seats that have been worn and abused groan under the weight of one too many nights in that become mythical out.
The destination and the journeys end that comes all too quickly, the reverie of fantasy broken by sliding squeaking doors like the mewl of abandoned kittens and up the same kind of stairs to see the night in another place. All the stars have gone and there are no trees. Other people mill about, filled with lives that always seem so much better, watched by the eternally shut out, trapped outside the window staring in at what he can never have. And there it is, the door. Light spills out from around it in a Luciferean halo, and that’s it.
The decision is made and for another night of forgetfulness and the jeers and sneers of faces made hard and hateful by too much alcohol and bitterness that they can never know anything but what it is to be themselves.
(all images courtesy of Google)