endless quantities they release a murmur as they pass. Focus. Look at their mouths.
‘This is Euston,’ the authoritative voice booms from nowhere, its dying echoes supported by hundreds of drones around us, their mouths moving, their vocal cords releasing a word into the atmosphere. ‘Euston,’ they say. ‘Euston.’ An endless torrent of a name. Ebbing and flowing like waves on an ocean. ‘Euston, Euston, Euston.’
We walk further in the direction of our next platform, our legs guiding us, the monotonous whisper of ‘Euston’ still swarming around us. As we walk we notice. The people are moving in unison, each jerky movement mirrored amongst the herd. Each footstep, each arm swing, each head turn, a carbon copy of a carbon copy. Our movement feels too fluid to be part of them. We pick up our pace. Try to bring our speed up to that of the Euston obsessed automatons. I feel Sam close to me. It’s not fear that draws him close, it’s so we can experience this together. Two lovers viewing a world as it is once the blinkers of reality have been removed. We find ourselves at the platform, the train waiting with its doors wide open. Jump on, it’s full, we stand, or rather I stand and Sam crouches at my side. The doors close, we’re on the move again.
Eyes upon us. Disapproving eyes. I crouch next to Sam. Voices, disapproving voices. A word hits my ears. Druggies. I look in its direction, the man who’d uttered it turning away from my glare sharply, his cheeks burning a beautiful scarlet, burnt by the glare of my eyes, psychic lasers heating his face with nervous embarrassment.
My eyes scan the train, slowly observing everything around us, they freeze, transfixed on a figure. I can feel the laughter welling up from deep within. I nudge Sam, nodding his attention in the direction of the figure. He sees, a gasp. We laugh. All eyes back on us but we don’t care, we’re safe in the bubble around us, created by our visions. From here we laugh. Separated from the real world we laugh at the fat Chinese girl in the second half of the carriage.
She sits there, her mass engulfing a whole seat. Thick folds of flesh ribbing her neck unnaturally. She just sits, oblivious to her own effect on those around her. Sagging arms rise towards her face, their stumpy fingers sinking into its folds of skin. She rubs, her jowls flapping like a dog shaking itself dry. She sits and feels, massaging excess skin with those tiny fingers. She looks content, happiness flowing disgustingly from a moving mass of meat. Rub, caress, massage. With each movement morphing her face into a different shape.
The doors sliver open and we stumble out. We’ve arrived.
III
We walk into Sam’s house, hit by a friendly warmth we move towards his room. Walking carefully, slow silent movements. The noise of the television upstairs filters down to us. The colours of the wall glow, mirroring the warmth of the house, a protective sanctuary, nothing can touch us here.
I push open the door to Sam’s room, cross the threshold and push the door closed behind me as Sam goes to the toilet. I stand in silence. The room is alight, the flashing LCD numbers and lights from his hi-fi sending out a galaxy of stars across the walls and into the air, its own solar system where it is the centre. I walk deeper into the room, deeper into the void of its space. The walls are a three dimensional tapestry of posters covering every surface. Faces of rockstars bulge out, their faces and eyes following my every move. I feel like a star, I feel important. Faces following me, I’m drawing the attention of the rich and famous.
I stop moving. My feet routed to the spot. I’m looking at myself. As I lean in for a closer inspection so does the other figure. Stood in front of a giant mirror I view the alternative world which only merges with ours when attention is paid to it. I look deeper, taking in this other universe’s galaxies and lights. It’s darker on the other side of the mirror. I feel a chill on my spine. A shadow, a tall black shadow, stands gaunt in the corner of the reflected room. I spin round, in my world there’s nothing, yet there it is within the mirror. Standing. I can feel its grim eyes upon me. We’ve met before, on a previous trip in a different lifetime to my current. We met before when its darkness tried to engulf me, but I’d kept it at bay. A tingle. I feel my fingers search under my t-shirt for the source of the pain. They come to rest on the scars on my stomach, the remnants of my last confrontation with the mirror world. It glides forward a little, a coldness rising with it, touching the heels of my feet. Last time I’d cut it out, hacked and sliced until it went. Now it has returned, four years to the exact day it wants to touch what it had been denied. Closer still it moves. My fingers dig at the scars, make them bleed. Rip open the old wounds and finish the job, close the link between that world and my own. Closer, colder, harder scratches.
Bright light. Brightness engulfs everything, sending the darkness fleeing from sight, the mirror world as bright as our own. The faces pull back into the wall, their eyes still staring, torn between Sam and me. I look at Sam, his finger still on the light switch, a childlike smile across his lips. We move towards each other. I’m smiling, I can feel it. The sight of him always makes me smile.
‘Why did you have the light off?’ he asks.
‘Didn’t you see it?’ He looks confused at my words. ‘The stars? The lights?’ I flick the light off and instantly the galaxies re-emerge, reaching towards us in blue and yellow flickers. Sam’s smiling. We embrace, pulling each other close. See the stars, how brightly they shine. I pull away, I need the toilet. Our embrace is broken, the love remains, a bond between us. I turn and leave. I hear Sam close the door behind me.
The bathroom is cool, I stand in pitch black. I close my eyes. Images. Outlines. All the corners within the room mapped out behind closed eyes. Open, darkness. Closed, blue flickering lines revealing where everything is. Open, the lines remain. I can see in the darkness. I cross to the toilet, lift the lid and pull out. Liquid flowing, cascading down into the bowl. All the time I look around. Pull my phone out of my pocket. Flick it open, it shines like a torch, illuminating everything. Shake, hide, zip. Push down the lever, it flushes. I turn. A mirror. I’m pulled towards it. Standing in front I look deep into the eyes which stare back at me. Wide pupils, I like what I see. Heavily shadowed and up-lit I still look good. The reflection smiles, it knows what I am thinking. Happiness in the darkness.
A thud, a pound. A noise in my head. Throbbing. I look at the mirror, the image blurs. Static blast, flicker. Interference on a television channel. Normal. Another flicker, the phone’s light fades. I look down, press a button, the light returns. I look up at the mirror.
Darkness. Long black shapes pouring from corners, crawling across units. A flicker, the image returning darker. The phone in the reflection’s hand oozes dull light, trying to challenge the losing battle with the dark. Flicker, blur, refocus. A shadow stands tall and gaunt in the corner behind me. I know if I turn there will be nothing there. Movement, it’s advancing. I want it to advance. I want to see it, even though my mind is telling me that if I see its face it will consume me whole.
‘Come on,’ I hear myself mutter. ‘Show yourself. Who are you?’
The figure now at my shoulder. Coldness falling across my body like waves across a beach. It leans in closer. I’m smiling. Closer, the light almost strong enough to reveal features. There’s an excitement rushing through me. I’ve been waiting so long for this moment. It’s taken four years to show itself to me. One more second. Features start to form, a blurred vision of nothing, but morphing, taking shape.
Bright light. The bathroom light blasts away all the shadows with its omnipresent glare. ‘Fuck!’ I mutter.
‘You okay in there Dom?’ A voice. Sam's voice. I unlock the door and he’s standing there. ‘Why’d you not turn the light on?’
‘I didn’t need to,’ I reply excitedly, his eager puppy dog excitement invigorating my own.
‘What?’
‘I could see in the dark. It’s so cool.’
We return to his room and sit on
the bed, entwining our limbs together. They extend, wrap around, tying us together in a vice like grip. We kiss. All eyes are upon us, superstars looking affectionately down. We’re together, we’re happy. Our lips move in a conversation without words.
‘I don't want this to stop,’ Sam says after a while. ‘I want to live like this forever, never come down.’
I smile. ‘Me too.’ I mean it. It is so peaceful, seeing the world through different eyes. Happiness with everything. Dismiss the figure. It exists only in that reversed world.
‘Let's get more,’ Sam continues.
‘More?’
‘Yeah, prolong this trip for as long as possible.’
‘Okay then. Lets go now before it gets too late. Yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
We unravel, untying ourselves from the knots we created. We stand, I stretch. Pulling on our jackets we begin to leave. Out of the room, through the passage way, out of the front door. Out into the night.
Click, flame, inhale. The cigarette feels cumbersome in my fingers. A giant tube of cancer, noxious gases entering my system with each drag. No taste, no warmth, no effect. It’s like breathing in air though a filter. Inhale, exhale. Going through the motions. I drop the cigarette to the floor.