Subway Dreams and Movements

When last I revisited my dream I was alone and in the company of strangers (and I use the word "company" in the loosest possible sense, we were separate people taken hostage by the elements and vying for shelter in a subway station before the rains abated, or our respective trains arrived). We were a disparate bunch of city folk representing almost every archetype from the world above- vermin, drug addicts, vagrants, business-people who missed their last train home looking expectantly at their watches and the blackness of the tunnel and me the token tourist/cripple in the middle of it all staring at my feet as they infringed on the yellow safety line of the platform getting a profound and worrying sense that I had seen all of this before somewhere: The platform, the flooded tracks, the rats jumping from sleeper to sleeper (like in hopscotch only with the very real possibility of drowning). It was like déjà vu, only more so, intense and certain. I had seen this before in fact I had seen a lot more than just this. It was a feeling that had pervaded my every action that day, like there was a thought trying to come to the fore of my consciousness and with every passing second becoming more and more vivid, on the tip of my consciousness. I knew the diner I had eaten in earlier, the window at which I sat and pondered over my coffee, everything and it was most vivid, like I could almost remember when I had seen them before like a fading dream, or a bad photograph, someone else’s anecdote I had visualised at some stage, I knew it had to be something.

There was something if not wrong then at least familiar in the damp smell of the air as I clack-clacked my way down the streets, the way it wrapped itself around me, around me and within my lungs causing me no small amount of discomfort as I breathed and sweated and recalled how like home it was, weather like home and how I dreaded it so. The clouds over me seemed like some ominous shadow stretching out over the city blocking out the daylight and sending a chill down my spine, deepening my sense of foreboding with every step, the darkness creeping in and the only relief was in seeing the subway station and it’s implied promise of shelter and passage back to my hostel room. I traversed the steps to the concourse around the stairwell that led underground and took a second to check myself, the muscles in my arms and legs twitching and pulsing in a hollow mockery of the fluid, natural movement that up until my diagnosis had come so easy to me.

I had navigated the steps reasonably well but without any sort of my usual caution as the rain poured down around me. Something about the unease I felt robbed me of my fear and self-doubt as I descended and pushed my way past the homeless people huddling in the exit for shelter. I swiped my card at the turnstile and shuffled my way onto the platform, careful not to trip on my crutches as I went.

All over the station the water leaked through the ceiling and collected in pools along the platform and between the tracks, making every rat look wet, ragged and more fierce, their movements quicker than I had gotten used to until they found a dry piece of track or an elevated alcove above the water level. I turned my eyes away from the rats and tried to remind myself of what it felt like to be safe again. I listened to the soothing trickling of the water along the supports and felt whole again.

I slouched down on my crutches and started a little at the sudden wail of a lone saxophone down the platform playing "Your Latest Trick". The sound echoing around the tunnel and shook my eardrums a little on the higher notes, the melody passed through me like a chill breeze and sent shivers through me. Again that feeling of being here before only this time even more pronounced, a feeling like something terrible were about to happen. I had to take my mind away from the feeling. I let myself sway a little in time to the saxophone, gentle and cautious like some kind of poorly controlled puppet, the type with the wires that holds you up instead of hanging you from above. I swayed a little and raised my head to look around the platform and noticed I was not the only one affected so by the music. In the corner of my eye I caught sight of a figure wrapped a gaudy yellow rag advancing towards the sax player, a lithe figure with the immodest and unrestrained posture of a child, the way she craned her neck to inspect the instrument as if seeing it for the first time and starting a little when the player hit a high note. I saw her and in that instant knew her life, knew that to her this was magical. A little afraid but still happy she backed off and skipped along the platform towards me, as if ignoring or not seeing any of the other people on the platform. I was the only other person (after the busker) I was the only other person on that platform in her perception of events. She strode away from the music and towards me directly and for some reason my heart sank as she did so.

She wore a yellow flowery sundress and blackened ankle socks that were once white, all well used and tattered, dressed like a 10 year old girl but wrinkled like an old maid and with a vacant smile that let you know she was "special" and believed she actually was. Happy in her simplicity and me afraid in my state of pseudo-precognition the pain in my chest worsened while the busker played on. She swayed to the music too but not like I did. Her movements were exaggerated like she was the only person in the world with rhythm. She pranced around me making these big arcs with her arms and smiling inanely at me but at the same time through me like I wasn’t really there with this vulgar, toothless grin. Her movements were fluid, buoyant and artful and wholely unlike mine. She smiled again right at me this time, making me aware I was staring at her and I knew she wanted to come over to me, to dance with me because she probably thought I was special like her too. I’m sure she wanted to ask me about my crutches and the arc of my spine and how alike we were but I cop on to her intentions straight away and stare at the ground gripping my eyes shut, trying to exclude her as best I can. When I open my eyes I stare at the ground keeping my distance as best I could because I was not like her. I was not what she thought I was. I had seen her life in others already, the people at the care homes, at the rehabilitation institutes, the people whose families hold out for miracle cures and new technologies. I stare at the ground again and try to focus on the yellow safety strip at the edge of the platform, holding my body as straight and as still as I can, refusing to let myself be swayed by the music.

The saxophone echoed around the station and the woman danced on around me in circles with her stupid smile and waving arms. The tightening in my chest returned along with a renewed sense of horror, of something about to happen. I gripped at my crutches as tightly as I could and prayed for the train to arrive. I shut my eyes again but I could feel her approach, could smell her unwashed body as it breezed past me back and forth, back and forth, filling me with anger at every pass. The images of the institute in my head, the "get-togethers", the "counselling sessions", the "discos", the pathetic movements of electric wheelchairs in that sad backwards-forwards motion cripples call dancing. All these things I had tried so hard to escape. I refused to be like them, to accept that I was "special like them". I was not an object of pity or a vagrant-in-training. At home I could do nothing for myself so I left for America to prove I could do whatever I wanted, even as I was. The sound of metal on metal from down the line and the renewed waft of body odour as the woman danced around me. I felt the sweat rolling down my armpits. I was so sure I could get along on my own. So sure I could look after myself. So sure I could get out of Dublin and leave the staid atmosphere of paralysis and bitterness for dust. So sure and yet there I was on a subway platform staring at the yellow safety-line trying to block out everything but the rainwater that dripped from above. Rain like home. Rain like home and I still can’t move and then it hit me like the flash of a camera the vision of my dream leapt into my minds eye and with that came the death of my spirits and the realisation that I was in close proximity to some impending tragedy. The thought on the tip of my tongue finally came to the fore and then there it was, Dublin was thousands of miles away but still I felt the paralysis of the place in my veins, paralysis and the knowledge (oh the knowledge and how it scratched at my essence) that I was soon to come into contact with some aspect of human pain that even my geographical detachment from home and the origins of my deformity could not avoid.

I held my eyes shut as the draft from the train made me shift on my crutches to avoid getting sucked under. The sound of screeching breaks drowned out the saxophone and then the doors opened in front of me and I clack-clacked inside taking the nearest seat on an empty carriage. I sat down and allowed myself the luxury of a sigh. I felt a sense of relief wash over me as the pains in my chest abated and my breathing became normal again. I felt like myself yet there was something wrong, something amiss, something lacking from the scene. Why was I not moving? The train was still and silent. I paused for a moment to look around and noticed that there was no noise from the platform outside. The music had stopped. Quiet like a graveyard at night and equally unnerving. The train doors were still open as if waiting for something or someone and that deathly silence all around. No words, no music, barely the squeaking of the rats or the dripping of the rainwater. Everything frozen or in slow motion like me in my dream and then that horrid vision of my disability returned to my minds eye and I started scratching my face to make it go away, to make it stop, to let me get home. But no such relief came and after a while it became obvious that something had happened. Something must have happened.

Afraid at what I might find I looked down at my clothes and noticed for the first time my trousers and jacket flecked with blood. Caught in the space between the carriage and the platform was a torn and reddened shred of yellow flowery fabric. The train remained there on the platform still silent and motionless as if in a state of shock or paraplegia. I buried my head in my hands and cried.

^

Biography

In memoriam of Niall Kitson. Born 1977, educated (allegedly) in UCD and resident of Dublin city. Sorely missed by someone somewhere (statistically speaking this much has to be true). Previous works can be viewed on Electric Acorn 6 and 7. No flowers/tears/giggling please.