Subterrania

SUBTERRANIA



The fetid air rushed by Armand, whipping long, stringy hair around his gaunt face, the light illuminating it briefly.  He squinted his eyes and raised a rail-thin arm up to shield them.  Then the train was past, rattling its way back into the darkness.  In the gloom his exposed flesh - face, arms, a single bony shin - seemed to glow.  Living underground had given his skin an almost translucent quality, so pale it gleamed like marble.



Armand was a tall man but stooped, his spine curled into a permanent hump that matched the cant of the tunnel roof.  His clothes were ragged and filthy, his feet bare, the soles caked with grime.  He shuffled his way along the narrow ledge, eyes darting this way and that, rat-like, as he came closer to the light of the platform.  He edged his way out of the tunnel, skeletal frame pressed against the wall as he eased himself into the crowd of anxious commuters who were waiting for the next train.



He made his way easily through the throng, the crowd parting to let him through, noses turned up in disgust.  Armand waited until he heard the roar of the approaching train, felt the gust of humid air wash over him, before sidling over to the trashcan and beginning his prospecting. An apple core, an inch of flesh clinging to it all around, just beginning to brown, was the first treasure he came across.  Next was the last bite of a doughnut, still wrapped neatly in a napkin.



Across the platform another scrawny figure darted its way between the trashcans, ducking and diving its way through the new wave of humanity pouring from the train.  Diamanda’s arms were scored with scars and lesions, open wounds that oozed pus.  People drew away from her, revolted, as she approached, several throwing coins or notes at her to keep her from coming close to them.  Diamanda pounced on these offerings like a cat, squirreling them away in the many layers of clothes she wore both to disguise her emaciated frame and to keep it warm.



If you looked closely, there were several more of these creatures, dirty, ragged wrecks of people darting around the fringes of the crowd, scavenging whatever scraps and morsels they could lay their grubby hands on.  Armand and Diamanda collided at the bottom of the escalators, each reaching a scrawny arm into the same trashcan at the same time.  Their heads snapped up, eyes meeting for the briefest of seconds before sliding away with barely a nod of acknowledgment.  They recognised one another, probably even knew each other’s names, but bent only on survival, they moved away without engagement.



A shriek came from above, forcing everyone on the lowest level of the station to look up in alarm.  At the top of the escalators stood a burly man in a faded brown raincoat.  He shook a fist in the air, screaming unintelligible words into the air.  The crowd looked away, breathing a collective sigh of relief as they recognised him as being one of the crazies.  The second level of the station was their territory, much as this lowest level belonged to the junkies and the top floor, closest to the street, was the domain of the teenage runaways.



The runaways had the best deal of the lot, lounging in the public waiting areas, scrounging food scraps from the many kiosks and cafes that lined the concourse.  Big eyed children, many of them carting unwanted babies on a narrow hip elicited more sympathy from passers-by than did the drunk, insane and plain wasted on the levels below.  Armand and Diamanda had both begun their homelessness on the upper level, shaking their cups for coins on the sun-drenched front steps. 



Booze swallowed those coins quickly; crack more so.  Now the few cents they managed to scrounge from passengers were clutched tightly in sweaty palms until the arrival of Derwayne and his foil wrapped packets of powder.  Derwayne’s swishy walk and high-pitched voice would have garnered ridicule anywhere else, but here, he was a lifeline, supplier of the blood that kept the ragged tribe alive.

“I’m here!’ he called from near the top of the escalator.  “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”  His voice was high pitched and sing-song. It echoed around the platform, bouncing into unseen nooks and crannies.  He didn’t fear the authorities; budget cuts the previous year had halved the number of security staff working in the subway system, and those who remained rarely ventured down here to the lowest level.  There was plenty to keep them busy on the floors above.



Derwayne made his way down the moving staircase, brushing aside a loony who though he was her son.

“Oscar?” she called.  “Oscar, dearest!”  Today Derwayne was wearing purple velvet pants with a shiny green waistcoat, his flamboyant afro appearing to hover above his skull.  The ragged crew who made up his clientele flitted in and out of the shadows, wary as rats and just as desperate.  He looked into Diamanda’s wild eyes, seeing the need within.  Her bony hand shook as she thrust money at him, palming the tiny package of powder and scurrying off to whatever dark hollow she called home this week.



Armand kept to the back of the pack.  He seemed not really a part of it.  Yet just as Derwayne was about to turn on the shiny faux-wood heel of his cowboy boot, Armand darted forward, a fistful of dog-eared notes clutched in one hand.

“Please!” he croaked, voice husky from disuse.  “Just one, please.”

“You got it, my man.” Derwayne’s grin revealed a mouthful of bad teeth, yellowed and crooked, two missing, one on top and one below.  He reached out a long-fingered hand to take the money Armand thrust at him.

“Sorry, dude.” Derwayne pushed the cash back at Armand.  “There just ain’t enough there.”

“What?”  Armand’s limbs were vibrating, every nerve and tendon thrumming in anticipation of the fix.  “Sure there is!”

Derwayne shook his head, perfectly groomed afro barely moving as he did so. “”Fraid not.  You’re short.”



With that Derwayne pocketed his wad of crumpled notes, weighted his pockets with coins, and left, ascending the escalator like royalty.  Armand watched his retreating back, a look of despair settling across his haggard features.

“Noooooo!” he howled, voice echoing around the cavernous platform.  “Noooooo!”  Faces appeared behind pillars and post, from around doorways.  Passengers turned to look at what was making that hideous animal cry, then turned again, eyes front, pretending to read the billboards.



Something streaked across the floor, launching itself at the escalator.  Derwayne turned just as Diamanda threw her emaciated frame on him.  His heel caught the top of the moving staircase and the pair tumbled to the ground.

“Hey!” Derwayne managed, pushing Diamanda off him and dumping her to the ground, an abandoned rag doll in her many layers.

“Here!” She shoved a fistful of money at him.  “Give!”  Eager to make his escape, Derwayne grabbed the cash and slid the package of powder into her hand in one motion.  He stood up, brushing dust from his absurd velvet pants, almost running in his eagerness to escape.



Diamanda rose slowly, eyes flicking nervously around as she realized where she was.  She got up, gathering her many skirts around her and picked her way across to the down escalator, leaping on and scurrying back to her own territory.  Armand still stood in the middle of the platform, eyes wide, mouth agape as he watched her.  Her head moved this way and that as she slid off the end of the staircase.  She brushed past Armand, her hand meeting his for the briefest of seconds, the precious package pressed into his palm as she slid back into the shadows.



Armand clutched the tiny parcel, fingers wrapped around it tightly enough for the corners to score his palm.  His body urged him to flee into the darkness, to the solitude of his squalid hole, but Armand fought back.  Hesitantly he started in the direction Diamanda had gone, there one moment, the next, swallowed up by the darkness of the tunnel.



Not knowing where Diamanda made her home, Armand shuffled in the dim light, not as sure-footed here as he was in his own patch of darkness.  He peered around, searching for any cave or crevasse that could be home to one of the underground residents.  Rounding a bend in the tunnel, he almost tripped on what appeared to be a bundle of rags stuffed into a tiny hole in the wall. He recognized Diamanda’s dress and dropped to his knees, crawling into the little hollow she called home. A flashlight hung from the low roof, illuminating the space with intense golden light.



The needle was still plunged into her left arm, right hand wrapped loosely around it. He pulled it out and laid it gently beside her.  Her eyes were rolled back in her head as she lay in a puddle of tangled black hair.  She sighed once, lips pulling back into a smile that revealed several missing teeth.

“Thank you,” Armand whispered, crouching over her.  His hand brushed her cheek, surprisingly warm.  He knew he should go; knew that this was a private ecstasy and one he should leave her to enjoy alone.  Yet it had been so long since he’d been close to another person.  He lingered, enjoying the warmth radiating from her body.  In her swoon she was quite beautiful, he decided, with none of the jittery manic energy he’d seen in her before.



“Are you an angel?”  Diamanda’s eyes focused blearily on Armand.

“No.”  He stretched his mouth into a smile.  “I’m Armand.”

“Armand…” The word was a hiss, just a breath of air escaping from her cracked and bleeding lips. Her chest rose and fell, once, twice, three times.  Then it rose once more.  Fell once more and stayed fallen.



Armand sat beside her for a long moment, watching that sunken, breastless chest in its stillness. He reached up and switched off the flashlight, plunging the cavern into darkness as he fled, face contorted into a horrified grimace as he tossed his tiny package of happiness down onto Diamanda’s corpse.  He blinked, trying to accustom his eyes to the dim light once more, stumbling and slipping his way through the unfamiliar tunnel, across the vast expanse of exposed platform and to the safety of his own void.



No more than an hour later he was back on the platform, emaciated frame racked by tremors as he staggered into the darkness on the other side.  This time he was more sure-footed as he made his way to Diamanda’s home.  His laboured breathing echoed in the tunnel, but he didn’t care who was aware of his presence now.  He found the bundle of rags and knelt by them, his fingers almost involuntarily scrabbling through the layers of cloth Diamanda wore.  He stood, pocketing his treasures, and slipped away into the darkness.



Armand ducked gratefully into the gloom of his own tunnel once more.  He cocooned himself in his hole, safe.  Below him were the rats, scampering around for whatever he might drop in the way of crumbs. This was a way of life, a family of sorts, and that thought gave him a sense of security, at least as long as the needle hung from his arm. 



He knew he was not truly alone.  He was surrounded by unseen neighbours - strangers and acquaintances, alive, dead or in-between - who had chosen, or perhaps fallen into, life underground.  Layers dispossessed people, society’s outcasts, living on top of one another in the grimy subway tunnels snaking through the city.  More frightening was the fact that this was just one station of hundreds, each stacked with humanity crawling through their dark suburbia.  Through Subterrainia.



1981 words