It was April of last year, and a sweaty afternoon on the Bakerloo underground line,
my corpus squashed like a marshmallow,
my cerebrum buzzing like a bee.
I have at some point chosen to name this story either ‘The Beige Man’, or ‘Tiny Sunburned Hearts’.
Name it as you please.
On this particular day, my throat was dry as dust, my limbs confused and surrounded by the rest of the city. I could feel a sunburn on my nose and cheeks, which I had somehow managed to get during a month of what they often like to call ‘unexpected weather forecasts’. I had been tucked away in the park all day, sharing pints with a kind middle aged man with a gold tooth (that soon would fall out under a night of unexpected drinking forecasts. At a later time, I need perhaps to write more about this man, as he is not the beige man, but a green.) I was melting, and ready to die. Agreeing with death, I was ready to write my funeral eulogy. I noted something about having your bones broken and turned into mellow mush,
and further,
a note about sitting at the top of creaky wooden stairs with short legs and a swamp brain trying to stay quiet; days behind the gym at primary, smoking a cigarette that tastes like adrenaline and fleeting friendship, kicking stones with the tip of your right sneaker,
and years after,
physically grown like a tree,
mentally stretched like its branches, smothering someone with that same apathetic neglect. I had it on the tip of my tongue, these hurricane days, impatiently leaving it all behind, but I was interrupted by the automated sound of the speaker.
Announced by an irrationally optimistic female voice, were the words,
(remembered in this order),
–The next station is The Gates of Hell,
change here for The Gates of Hell.
Please mind the gap between the train and the platform.
I have later found out that on Central, Victoria, and Bakerloo lines this voice belongs to Emma Clarke, who is around 50 years old. She probably has cats, one surely named Victoria. Or maybe she went as far as Bakerloo. Fat Bakerloo. She repeats, (now remembered like this),
–Mind the gap and leave your heart, the next person will surely take better care. Exit the train, we are ready to depart.
The beige man with the beige clothes and a beige face who sits next to me rolls and tucks away a newspaper on the inside of his arm, saves it there like a secret he will never open. He stands up, minds the gap loyally on his way out, legs like long ropes. Maybe he hid away his heart inside a story about some sad local news, ‘Two men robbed in Piccadilly, perpetrator not yet found’, did not want to leave it on the seat as Emma had commanded. I follow close behind, and mind the gap, too. I wonder what is inside the gap, perhaps miniature versions of us, a tiny tube filled with tiny people, tiny feet minding tiny gaps, carrying tiny newspapers, leaving the train at a tiny gate of hell.
–Leave your heart. Leave your heart.
We are ready to depart.
The beige man and I are now on an investigation together. He clearly does not know, has no clue at all, although I firmly believe he would appreaciate my unoffical business. His shoe heels clicks methodically as he heads towards the elevating stairs. Quietly, we stand staring forward, upwards, like robots in temporary unison. The man pulls out his underworld travel card from an extremely beige pocket. I had not noticed it was there. Mine is already set in my hand (unfortunately, some would say, I am always prepared.) The man beeps his card on the overworld machine, and disappears into the busy crowd. I retract back into the underworld without beeping mine. Before he left, I saw him throw away his newspaper.
–Leave your heart.
Leave your heart.