Behind it I discerned
the dark reflection of a railtrack line. I could hear from a distance the sound
of the air caused by trains running on the rails
one too close to the other. On the right,
there was a small iron staircase which ended
on a smaller platform. I went down carefully. Everything
was creaking. Even the platform was moving gently, very very softly, like a
floated raft, drifted by the sleeping water. I clenched
tightly the staircase railing that was on
the wall side and I took a deep breath. The door closed
behind me, either pushed by air or by a hand and I found myself
in the total dark for a while with the clear
sounds of the trains multiplied
moaning as they were touching the
tracks. There was a train somewhere far but I sounded as
if it was there, with me. And along with the metal clangs I
could hear a strange whisper coming from many murmurs together. It was a
thousand whispers as if thousands of people had been united in the dark under the
earth surface, trying to race along the
tracks, trying to be faster than the hissing distant echos of the trains.
I groped the wall and felt my blood
leaving my body. I was scared to death. But why on earth had I gone
there? This black
darkness made me completely unable to direct
myself properly, so as to return back to the small entrance door. I had two choices.
Either would I stand there, still like a
statue, praying for a light or I would
walk blindly, trying to find, on my own, the beam of the slightest light.
The more I was walking
having my hands against the wall, the more I was praying that
the platform not come to an abrupt
end. I would find myself on the tracks or even worse in the
depths of a gloomy well which would have opened its jaws especially for sucking
me, twirling hungrily its dark tongue. As I was walking, I understood that the platform was not a
straight one but every now and then it turned slightly and it was full of
curves and corners. I must have crossed quite a few metres, without knowing at which place
of the underground tube I was and most importantly where exactly I should go.
And I had that strange feeling that the ground under my feet was becoming more
and more slanting. In fact once or twice I slipped and grabbed the wall. I
was really desperate when my left hand, out of a sudden and while groping
anguishly the wall, caught a metallic lump. I closed it in my palm to
understand its shape. It looked like a small lever. This scared me more. What if by
pulling that lever down, I would inadvertently open the mouth of the evil monster which was
waiting, hidden in the dark, for my wrong move to swallow me? Sweat droplets dribbled
down my forehead. I swore at my stupidity which had sent me there and I decided
to move on without pulling any lever. And the moment I was taking my hand away
from the cold metal, I thought I heard something as crying. I didn’t need
anything else to be absolutely frozen. It seemed as if time became still , that
everything stopped to move, along with them my brain as well and that
everything submerged in the absurd wilderness of that lament. My feet must have
weighed more than all the trains and my
head was like an enormous bubble of void air. I was overwhelmed by chocking
shouts which couldn’t come out of my throat. The cry became louder and there
was no doubt that it was the cry of a baby or the cry of a lot of babies. I
remembered all the stories I had heard for the Paris sewages. All who had
descended down there, in the dedalus tunnels, got mad and were lost for ever,
completely crazy from the cries of the unborn babies who had been thrown down
in the drain system, haunting every pipe, every lid and every centimetre of the
swamp down there.
Ah, I
couldn’t take it any more! My hand pressed the lever down and in seconds the whole
platform was lit by a dim yellowish light. I saw that there were also some other old bulbs, nailed on the wall.
image: Fredrik Odman
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