way back to his. Back to my second home, half my time spent at his, half his at mine. Always together, rarely apart. Squashed side by side on this train, I gently rub my finger against his side. Happiness. Take this moment and remember it for a lifetime, another to add to the catalogue of memories previously stored.
The train stops and we leave, walking a familiar route. How many times have we walked these tunnels together? I’m not counting, I’m existing. Happy with everything. Who would change the love of a person for anything else?
We’re walking quickly, eager to get back, eager to ditch our bags and their burden, eager for adventure. Without even noticing we arrive at Sam’s, unlock the door and enter. Kick off our shoes and enter Sam’s room. We smile at each other, kiss and then Sam rushes to get some juice, puréed fruit watered into a drink. The heavy flavour of natural juices to wash away bitterness. We’re ready.
We change position and sit on the floor by his desk. Placing the containers in front of us, juice next to them. It’s like we are preparing for a ritual, laying out all the artefacts required for a religious experience. We sit cross legged, facing each other, deep breath and it begins. Eat the mushrooms bite by bite. Sat in silence torturing our bodies. A gag, swallow juice to make sure nothing comes up. We have a law, anything that comes out has to go back in, the thought of eating sick enough to calm the stomach. Bite, chew, swallow. A ritual to allow us to see the world differently, to separate us from the rest so we can exist on a higher plain.
The containers are empty. Down the remainder of the juice and sit back. Sam picks up the empty shells and slips them under his bed. Evidence hidden from sight. He comes and sits next to me. I put my arm around him as we lean against his giant pillow. I smile, his head against my chest. ‘You ready?’ I ask. I feel him nod. ‘Shall we go?’
‘Yeah,’ he answers as he rises slowly. I follow him, we go get our trainers and slip them on. Pause at the hallway mirror, our last chance to check our appearance with true eyes for the next few hours. Happy, we leave, Sam pulling on his coat as we go. Walk out into the already darkening world.
The day is fading, our adventure soon to begin.
II
Underground, it usually starts here. In these vast catacombs we find ourselves walking, all around us the colours intensifying. Burning through the fabric of reality, branding themselves on our eyes. Reds and yellows, information and warnings. Sit down and wait.
I stare at the poster in front of me. A giant woman cutting grass with a sickle. She stands motionless as the grass sways in a breeze. The sky in the image crystal clear, a summer’s day, designed to tempt you away from the coldness of this country. Visit us and run through a field, warm air brushing past you in gentle breezes. Be carefree, but only if you can afford to. If you have no money, we don’t care about your mundane experiences of cold winds and bitter rains. Money can’t buy everything, but it can provide imaginary freedom.
The grass continues to sway in front of me. Luring. I wish I could just stand up and jump through the image into the landscape. Tear through the poster like Alice through her looking glass. Exist in that other world, far away from this life of deadlines and pressures. If only I could. The yellow line however is a warning. Go beyond it and in most certainties only death will await you. So either way, a jump would take you away from everything, only there will be no coming back once you’ve crossed over.
A wind brushes across us, too strong to be the breeze in the poster. I look up, Sam’s standing. The train has arrived. We get on.
‘Any idea where we are going?’ I ask.
‘My granddad says they’ve got the Christmas lights up on Oxford Street. I reckon we should go take a look at them.’ He smiles.
I smile. ‘Yeah, that should be cool.’
The train carries on moving and we sit in wait. Excitement rushing through us.
Stop, open, move. We join the crowds waiting to get out of the station, it’s so crowded that we don’t have a choice but to, there’s no space to just slip by. The wait fuelling our excitement, adding to the tension in the air. The toxins in our system calling for no need of claustrophobia, these masses of people are meaningless to us.
We voyage to ground level at mechanical pace on a series of escalators. Soon the cool air of the city rushes over us, feeling fresh in our lungs after the stale dusty air of the subterranean levels. Stop, stand, breathe. Let it enter our bodies and clear our mind. Click, flame, inhale. Breathe in cancerous euphoric smoke. Taste nothing but feel the smoke flowing around the lungs. Air breathed in through a filter of death. Sam beside me, a cigarette held between his fingers. Addicted to death, hopelessly addicted to Sam. I could live without cigarettes; life without him however doesn’t bear thinking about. Painful, directionless and without love, a world blown out of orbit, a planet without a sun to encircle.
Sam’s looking up into the air. His mouth hanging wide, cigarette burning to the butt in his fingers. It falls, slow motion, hitting the floor in a spark of orange. Sam moves forward. Standing in the centre of the road he stops, still staring up. ‘It’s beautiful,’ I hear him say. A whisper of words floating out into the night.
I position myself at his side and look up, allowing my gaze to share the same space as his. Lights in the air, long columns of white reaching deep into the sky. Penetrating, swooping, beautiful. We stand there transfixed upon them. Stood in the centre of the road oblivious to all around us. The noise of the city fading to a distant hum in my ears. Silence consuming me as the lights cut across the sky like torchlight cutting through the soul. A beauty in the darkness.
I’m moving forward, we both are. Our bodies gliding down the street, drawn towards the lights. Levitating like ghosts, unseen by everyone. Ghosts drawn to the heavenly light of the afterlife. The light of Final Judgment casting blessed souls into Heaven or discarding them into the pits of Hell. Step into the light and be cleansed of all sin. Our legs are guiding us to redemption, yet we are getting no nearer. We just glide. My attention wanes and I realise what we are doing, transfixed on beams we place ourselves in danger. A speeding vehicle could replace one light for the other. Our redemption, our distraction would actually be our Final Judgement.
I grip Sam by the arm and pull him with me to the safety of the pavement. His eyes snap away from the lights and look cloudily at me. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asks.
I laugh. ‘We were walking down the centre of a main road.’
Sam looks and laughs. ‘Really? Ha, I’m always doing dumb shit like that.’ He smiles at me. ‘How nice are those lights through?’
‘Hell yeah. Had us sucked in didn’t they?’ I smile, my hand brushing against the small of his back, a small display of love in a big city. I hold the hand there for a while as we take another look up at the lights. The world passing by us, two content souls, happy in each other’s company. Everything I need stands next to me, if the lights were guiding us to redemption then they’re pointing in the wrong direction. My soul’s saviour stands in this world, there is no need for me to wait for a second coming. Sam, my lover, my friend, my soul companion. So, in the world there is meant to be one soul companion for each of us, a person sculpted out of the same clay and who we are destined to meet. In my heart I know I’ve found mine. One soul, cut in two and scattered, now standing together staring up into the night’s sky. Joined and complete. Looking up into the heavens my mind utters a silent prayer, thanking God for finally letting me find a piece of happiness.
I draw my eyes away from the lights again and survey the scene. People around, as always. Life always on these streets. Lives being lived independent of our own. So many faces, seen once and never again.
Sam’s eyes are upon me. Watching my face. ‘What are you thinking?’ he asks.
‘Not a lot really, just focusing.’
‘Sometimes I wish I could get inside your head and see what goes on in there.’
r /> ‘That is something you really wouldn’t want to do.’ I smile. ‘It’s pretty fucked up in there.’
‘Would still be good to see how you view the world.’ He smiles.
I let my eyes roam. Let them take in the people around me. They seek, they find, they lock. ‘Well, if you want Sam, you can tell me if that person actually exists.’ I point.
Sam turns and follows the finger. A laser beam extending from the finger’s tip to the target. A guide for Sam’s eyes to follow. A snort of laughter next to me. Sam’s eyes locked on the same person. ‘What the fuck?’ he breathes. I'd predicted that statement.
Our eyes have once again been drawn by the fat. The easiest to pick out of a crowd. The lady has paused in front of a shop window, as she searches its content aimlessly with her eyes, her hand brings up a hamburger to her mouth. Slow, determined movements. Exercise to her, important to her existence, her way of pumping iron, weights swapped for food. Her ass is huge, no doubt a forgotten race of humans exist in there, hidden from predators by its fleshy barriers. Her clothes hang tight to her, showing off her curves, also, however, her lumps, bumps and sagging flesh, and they say black is slimming.
Another bite of her hamburger and she loses interest with the window. Slowly and