Down in the Depths, the Very Very Depths
By JC
Sitting on the subway train thinking about rain Damon watched the man trying trying trying to touch a young woman. The train lurched, the woman leaned, then the man lunged. Paw. Breast. Contact.
When he’d awoken that cold windswept snowsleet Sunday afternoon, his apartment felt claustrophobic, a cluster-wart. Crust everywhere. He’d gone out out, into the air, the dim winter light but oh the cold. He needed to examine the city like an etherized patient, poke and prod its under-bits – how else could he experience it? and yet it was too cold and he was too hungover/dessicated/frailsick to do it aboveground.
You learn a city from its subways – he coined the aphorism as he bumped down the first flight of stairs, his body bumping down like a dragged suitcase. As he bought a fare card he decided he liked the idea – nearly everyone congregates here, and you can get a good look at them in a way you can’t when passing on a street.
He’d once thought of writing on the subway but he was too hungover. All he could come up with were titles.
My second novel will be called ‘Dark Star: a Memoir of Addiction.’ It will be about a nine-year old girl and her very happy childhood. It’s like, something something something about how that happy childhood feeling won’t last, it’s transitory, just like addiction? Or drugs. Something like that.
The subway squealed to a stop: eeeesh, his cotton candy brain. His brainbox felt drier than a Kleenex in the desert. Continue reading…
