then they distort, show us an array of nonsense, a meaningless collection of letters making words of nothing. Orange lines flick across the screens. CORRECTION it reads. More random words appear. You can see mild panic on people's faces, lost without their schedules and timetables.
No trains are coming. We know this because we managed to decipher it from the voice that boomed noisily across the station’s tunnels, echoing and reverberating all around us. It cuts across our thoughts again. ‘The Northern line is experiencing problems, a restricted service is currently in operation.’
I look at Sam, all I want to do is get back to Waterloo, to get out of this underground hell, he nods slowly at me, without using words we know that we are thinking exactly the same thing. It’s getting claustrophobic down here. Each breath feels harder to take. Focus. If there are no trains running to Waterloo, we’ll double back to where we entered this station and journey on from there.
We retrace our steps slowly. Stop. I feel like I want to cry. The tunnel of infinity stretches before us. It can’t be that long surely. People rush from behind us, pushing past without care about anyone but themselves. Off into the distance they move. They’re gliding above the surface, their feet never touching the ground, their legs not moving as their rigid backs turn slowly, looking around, making sure everyone is keeping clear of their personal space. Pompous faces casting disapproving glares at everyone, no one meeting another’s standards. The figures fade into the distance, fanning out at the end as they spread and disappear along the platform we know lays beyond.
I look at Sam. ‘Ready for this?’
He nods. ‘Yeah.’
‘Let's do it.’
Our feet cross an invisible line. There’s no going back now. Struggle down the tunnel, eyes forward, walking down the centre. Gliding figures brush past us, parting and then rejoining after they’ve avoided our slow paced obstruction. Off they float, quick movements to get in queue for the next delayed train, trying desperately to ensure their journeys are not delayed, silently praying their schedules aren’t disrupted dramatically, getting ready their bitter bile to spit in the face of an innocent if their plans are ruined.
Coming back through the tunnel doesn’t feel so bad. Our progress quicker. Two attendants stand at the end, their eyes watching our slow approach with suspicion. Finally we reach the platform, passing the two with their bright orange nylon waistcoats, bright enough to convince people they are people of importance down here in this hidden world. Their eyes always following us as we move, move onto the cattle hold of an underground slaughter house.
The station is packed. Not a single place to call your own. Everyone invading the space of another. We squeeze to the back, sliding slowly along the platform with our backs against the wall. Breath slowly and don’t panic, nothing is going to happen. The cattle tense, the train to freedom is coming, they can feel the vibrations. It pulls slowly into the station. The doors open, the struggle begins. Everyone pressing forward, fighting to get on board. On they cram, preventing the doors from closing until they’ve all got on. The carriages filling up, all space occupied. We finally reach the doors and they slide shut before us. Smug faces look at us through glass, smiling at their own selfishness. People in suits with egos feeling like gods because they’ve managed against all odds to stay on track. The train fades into the distance. I cast my eyes up and down the platform, we’re the only two who didn’t make it. The only two who didn’t escape slaughter.
I feel more claustrophobic now the platform is empty. Trapped, everyone given the chance for freedom except us. Figures gliding onto the platform, pushing us back. The next escape attempt and already our backs are against the wall. There’s no way we’re going to get out of this station from this platform.
‘Fuck this.’ I grab Sam by the arm and pull him into a disserted tunnel.
‘What you do that for?’ Sam asks, genuine surprise.
‘I really want to get out of here and there’s no way that’s gonna happen from that platform.’
‘But we need the Northern line to get home.’
‘Fuck that, we’ll detour, I need air. This place is suffocating me.’
'But I don’t know another way out of here.’ He looks at me, slight distress in his eyes.
‘Well, that might be a start.’ I nod behind him and he turns, looks then swings his head back at me, a broad smile on his face.
As if from nowhere an escalator stands in front of us, its steps moving up. Escape to another level. If we take it we’ll be one level closer to the surface. It shines at us, a light in the grey monotone world with its orange coated overlords. It beckons us, the heavenly light for two lost souls. We walk towards it. Step on and let it carry us to salvation.
A beep. A constant noise, high pitched and cutting through. I look at Sam. ‘Can you hear that?’
‘Yeah, what is it?’
‘I dunno, where’s it coming from?’ I look around, searching for the source.
Sam does the same. ‘You.’
‘Me?’
‘It’s coming from you.’ His voice is filled with amusement. ‘Dom, you’re beeping.’
I listen, he’s right. ‘What the fuck?’
‘You’re not a bomb are you?’ His voice loud, people turn to look at us. ‘Dom, you’re going to explode when we get to the top.’
I’m laughing. ‘I fucking hope not.’ Where is this sound coming from? Think, focus, locate. I lift up my arm. The noise gets louder. Pull back my sleeve. My watch. Hysterics. ‘It’s my fucking watch!’
We’re laughing. The beeping stops, we reach the top. I don’t explode. It’s six o’clock.
VI
Leicester Square. Well, that’s what the train had told us, as do the labels on the wall. So we’d escaped Embankment station, dragged our feet in a direction without idea and here we are. Still underground but able to make an escape into a location we know well.
We’ve been locked underground for most of the night. It’s soul destroying, watching everyone rush around with intent as we amble through directionless. Everyone knowing the way whilst we just scramble along in our own world. Our own separate worlds. I mean seriously, what is the point in trying? Everything I do won’t connect me to him. This scum of normality is everywhere, without Sam why should I struggle against it? Let it engulf me, cover me, filter into my lungs and numb my individuality. Let it turn my creativity into something more beneficial to the money making drones in their high rise offices.
Sam’s rushing ahead, bypassing the crowds and leaving me behind. Step after step my feet mimic those in front of me. Join the group. Why bother to resist when all I have to strive for are unobtainable goals and dreams? So much easier to join the herd. Work a dead end job and hold a funeral for the dreams I once had. It’ll be so much easier that way, so much reliability. Life scheduled to days, pay day, bill day, mortgage payment, and with whatever money is left over go to a bar and piss away your life. No kicks in the teeth, let downs or disappointments. No staring into the distance to see that your dream is still so far from your grasp. Life without dreams is directionless, rolling forward in routine until the day you die. At the moment that looks peaceful, no more need to prove myself to anyone. No more pressure to succeed in impossible aims.
I look up, Sam a speck in the distance. Free. No cares, his head filled with dreams, and how lucky for him. Everyone succeeds except me. Dom, always kicked down, discarded, forgotten. Dom, always striving to pick himself up and continue to try, but now Dom can’t be fucked to pick up the pieces. Why mend something when you know it’ll only get broken again? What if I did just disappear into the crowd, would anyone miss me? Obviously not, Sam hasn’t doubled back to find me. Even the centre of my world would move on to find another.
I focus on that dot in the distance. Never have I felt so disconnected from the one I love. It hurts, hurts more than any pain. So I stand here, let t
his moving staircase lift me in queue at its own pace. Why run to the top when you’ve got nowhere to go?
Slowly, surely and on schedule, I arrive at the surface. Sam’s stood there waiting, a glimmer of hope. I walk over to him. He’s smoking, his lips move, I don’t listen.
‘Can I have a cigarette?’ I ask. I take what’s offered, pull out my lighter and ignite the end of a manufactured, legal suicide machine. Cast my eyes around. Looking. Everyone’s having so much fun, enjoying themselves, ignoring my presence as though I’m invisible. Couples walking by arm in arm, loving looks in their eyes, bodies close, tenderly touching. How I wish it was like that now, but there’s that distance between Sam and I, not only mentally but physically. Normally we stand so close, an obvious sign that we are more than friends, everyone can see it, two people shining loving tenderness through their movements, but here we stand. Alone, like two strangers. We stand in silence, smoking. Inhale, exhale.
‘What you thinking?’ Sam’s voice.
‘Nothing.’
‘What you thinking?’ Repeated, eager.
‘Nothing.’
‘What you thinking?’
No reply.
‘What you thinking?’
Bite the frustration. This frustration should be making me angry, but instead I can feel the laughter growing in me. ‘Seriously Sam it doesn’t matter.’
‘What