Almost
running, I went down the two floors to the underground platform, being careful
not to touch the black iron railing that was shining like a snake’s skin. The
light was getting dimmer as I was descending more and more and the stairs
opened their mouth entrance to their end. On the last stair the daylight had
vanished and had been replaced by the yellowish colour of cheap gold. The huge
fluorescent bulbs were screeching as if thousands of little insects had been
trapped into their lids and now all of them were trying to organise their
massive exit to the slow tidal wave of the suffocating atmosphere which was
hugging like a lustful lover all the platform. I sighed a little scared but I was determined to amuse myself as a traveller of this endless
underground tube. Its two sides were gapping open, totally black in front of
me, the one on the left, the other one on the right. I started imagining mythical cities full of three headed beasts, hidden
under the railtracks, breathing silently and talking in that language of resonances
caused by the continuous banging of the metal railines. I had been down in the
tube at nights too, waiting for some train and I know what I am saying. It is
so freaking scary to know that the trains routes are getting less.,It’s even
scarier what I can hear while waiting for them.
I wouldn’t
have seen the small dark curving right where the stairs ended, if my leg hadn’t
slipped somewhere, making me hold the railing tightly, bending over my whole
body in order to keep my balance. And as I was trying not to fall down and be a
funny clown for the other commuters, I saw a stack of a mysterious dust. A low
black hill formed by the dust of an unknown metal or coal stamped and broken by
someone. It was like charcoal chips. It showed incongruously symmetrical and
quiet, in relation to all this dirt and rush. I was curious. I
always used to be drawn by the most insignificant things for others, actually
sometimes,- especially when I was younger-, I used to believe that there were
some things that I was the only who could see them
and whose existence could be confirmed only by me. These things might
have existed only because they happened to have fallen into the fury of my
observation. But they were completely invisible for the others or absolutely
improbable to be noticed by someone else. The same with that dust now.
I had
bent over it looking closely the blackish mountain. It was left
there, formed with geometrical accuracy
right on the corner of a staircase, at a place
that no leg could have stumbled on it. I rubbed some of the dust among
my fingers and then I brought it to my nose. Some people were looking rather surprised
at me wondering what on earth I was
doing there like a dog on its four legs. It smelt like poppy seed but its hard, as rock,
texture made me sure that it wasn’t something like this. Without thinking I put
some of it on the tip of my tongue, turning my back so that no one could see
me. And right at the moment I was turning my back, towards the wall, I
saw the open door..How strange..I had never
seen that door and the strangest of all is
that I used to use
the tube daily. I walked past the
same spot again and again and I promise, I am a very observant person! A door
isn’t something I wouldn’t have seen! And such a small door as if it is made
for liliputean workers or passengers at the height
of toddlers. I could not understand…I was standing surprised, looking
magnetized at the black hole that appeared behind
the door opening. And really I don’t know what
it was that made me approach.
I am not a particularly courageous person, or
impatient to meet something seeming so threating by first sight. I could have
left and then I would think all day long about this door and it sudden
appearance there. I would probably come to the
conclusion that it was my fault that I hadn’t seen it before.
image: August Sander
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