Maybe.
V
There’s a queue for the escalators, hordes of people waiting to be transported at mechanical pace. Two escalators, one either side of a flight of steps, locked, unmoving, normal. ‘Look at them all,’ Sam says. ‘All waiting. Following the crowd. Let's be different. Let's take the stairs.’
I look at the queues. Mechanical people following each other like a herd of cattle following the Judas cow to slaughter. Join or stand apart? Herded or individual? ‘Let's go,’ I say.
We advance down the centre of the crowds, towards the stairs. Eyes upon us. Viewing, calculating. One foot after another we climb. Higher and higher. There’s no going back now. People either side of us, watching our progress at a designated pace.
Never-ending. We’re moving forward yet it feels as though we’re getting nowhere, the end always the same distance away. Legs aching but we can’t stop. I look behind me. Sam’s face says the same. Behind him stairs fade into the distance. Stairs everywhere. A stairway into space. Purgatory, trapped in perpetual climbing. Step after step, a walk to nowhere.
Alongside us people smile. Smile at us, mocking us as they pass. This is the price we pay for daring to stand against the norm, but we will not succumb, we have no intention of giving in or giving up. Legs protesting. One step after another.
Space. Cool breeze. I almost stumble forward. Without realising, the mountain of steps has come to an end. Ignore the ache twitching around inside my legs. I expected a cheer, or at least some acknowledgement of our achievement, of our escape from purgatory, but nothing. People rise up from the depths, walking in lines, rushing through the barriers. A factory line of mankind. We’ve been forgotten by the strangers we entertained.
We walk. Leave the station without pausing to recover. Get ourselves as far away from the boxed in crowds and subterranean levels as possible.
So this is Angel, Heaven after the purgatory leading from Hell. The streets are alive. People partying. Drunk. Happy like I only with different chemicals running through them. Happy with their friends, their partners, like I’m happy with Sam. He’s trailing alongside me, his eyes wide as if viewing our surroundings for the first time, even though they contain memories for him, memories of him, memories from before we knew of each other’s existence, our coming together a random event, or maybe a cosmic design. A destiny to meet and leave a lasting impact on each other’s lives, but together we are. A warm feeling at that fact. Love overpowering alien chemicals. A smile. All I ever seem to do is smile, well, at least it’s better than a frown.
Night. Everyone free to have fun after being released from the shackles of work, a momentary freedom before their lives once more become controlled by others. We still feel separate from the masses, we can see how they operate, can see how they exist. We can see that they are happy in their ignorance. I wonder, whatever happened to the carefree children they once were? What happened to them as they grew up? Why do we have to swap childhood fantasies for set in stone deadlines? The need for money overpowering the need for dreams. How could innocence be lost so freely? Age, work, die. I shudder. Pray that I never lose sight of what I am. I want to remain the same, to continue looking at the world as I do. Independent from the crowd. The day the dreams stop will be the day that I die.
All around us are brightened lights, a drunken world, air tense with the possibility of fights. I stop myself. My thoughts just rhymed. I giggle, I stand, turn around. A tick, a tock, memories timed.
‘Sam?’ say I. He stops and looks. I spin around, I wish to fly.
‘What are you doing? Shouldn’t we get going?’
‘Sam, don’t you see? I’ve started hearing in poetry.’
He laughs. He smiles. ‘Don’t be stupid. People don’t talk in poetry.’
‘They might not talk it, but I can hear it. If you listen closely, you’ll hear the rhymes of this city.’
Sam listens. Sam hears. A rhythm hidden beneath the depths. A secret language. His smile broadens. ‘You know what? I can hear, people taking about love and fear.’
‘And you rhyming like I.’
‘We’re magic, watching the world go by.’
Two lovers move along, their lives a mix of laughter and song. They talk in riddles, no gap down their middles, happiness, tenderness, souls forever entwined.
The night air is cool and calm. The buzz of a city, money on palm. Payments doubled. One for the body, one for a soul so lost, so small. We stand apart from this. Redemption won’t come from alcoholic bliss. We have one and other, we snatched destiny’s offer. A fate preordained in the stars.
I look to my feet. Giant steps falling on the pavement it meets, silent to our ears, striding through a world without fears. Sam at my side, loyalty. A prince gliding along, royalty. Cigarette in my fingers burning. Bring up, inhale. Euphoria from the bleeding. If I could change the world I wouldn’t, everything’s happening for a reason, to touch its chaotic order a treason. A random passage through. A constant search for what is true. True to you, true to me, be true to yourself.
A glowing red, three prongs of fire attached to black, a discarded item of fun from a few weeks back. Sam grabs, Sam lifts, Sam holds. I watch, I smile, feel memories mould. A memory thrown away, retrieved to live again. A devil’s pitchfork held high. People smiling as they pass us by, happiness through our happiness. It extends out, long in Sam’s hand. Push it against people, the feel of Hell in this land.
We’re entertainers. Here for your amusement. Your smiles, your banter, give us fulfilment. We walk, we talk. Deep into the night. Cross the road, through the gates. Salvation’s in sight. A rattle, a twist, a push. An open doorway beckoning. We enter, we smile, kick off our shoes. The warmth of the house welcoming.
We’re home.
VI
We fall onto Sam’s bed. The rhymes have stopped. Our minds free to soak in that walk. The people, the feel. A different world, dark yet harmonious. Peel off the visions of reality to see the surface beneath. A world out of a film. A walk through Halloween Town, an adventure through the night time paradise of Suburbia. Tim Burton created the world and we were allowed to view his paradise through the cracks of Hell. The hellish, dulled reality of controlled fun we exist in just a fiction enforced by false idols. Tim Burton created the world and we experienced it. How much better it was, a world of dreams, fantasies, of carefree abandonment. A dark and twisted land of adventure. Paradise for lost souls.
I roll on to my feet and walk over to Sam’s desk. He follows but stays on the bed, he lays at the end closest to me. I need to write. Pull open my journal, words flowing out onto the page. The pencil writes.
Everything rhymes in my head.
Oh my god stop it, I should be dead.
All of this shit going on in my head.
Somebody shoot me I need to be dead.
Oh shit, but by reading this tale,
The story just loops and starts up again.
They’re back in my head,
Oh I must be dead.
But then I realise...
...I am God.
A flash. Sam’s armed with a camera. He takes another picture then reads what I’ve written.
‘You’re God?’ he says. ‘Oh my god, you are God.’
I nod excitedly.
Sam smiles. ‘I’m going out with God. Is that why you know so much?’
I hold up my hand to silence him. He walks back to the bed. The pencil hits the page again.
But don’t you see?
I ain’t God but we’re both the same,
I am the Devil, and Dom is my name.
But if we are both the same
And God is the Devil,
Then there is only one name.
If I am both they and they are both me,
It means I am the world,
And Dom is just me.
I throw down the pencil, the book is cl
osed and I turn to Sam. I can feel the satisfied look on my face. I pick up the camera and take a photo of him.
‘Why are you so wise?’ he asks.
‘I dunno.’ A shrug of my shoulders.
‘No seriously Dom, why are you so wise? You are God ain’t you?’
‘Only to you.’ I smile and take a sideways glance at the mirror, the mirrored reflection smiles back. There are no shadows in that world now. The reflection nods knowingly at me. I smile deeper. Look back at Sam. He lays there looking puzzled. I choose not to tell him. My mouth moves, words flow. ‘In your world, I am God. In mine, you are God. That’s all that matters.’
‘No, I can’t be God because you are. Don’t be stupid.’ I sit back down at the desk, he continues, ‘Dom, don’t you find it weird that inside us there’s all these organs and blood moving around. I wish I could just cut myself open and watch it. How cool would that be?’ He’s holding his top up, running his finger across his belly. For a split second I want to see it too. How easy to pick up his Stanley knife and slice, cut, pull. Watch. It would be so simple, but why ruin what is perfect? Why ruin my Sam?
I stand. Sam smiles and moves over, allowing space for me. I sit with my back against the wall. Hard. Solid. Support. Sam snuggles into me. I put my arms around him and hug him tightly. He looks up. I kiss his lips, he kisses mine. The world of fantasy fades slowly, unnoticeably. The veil drawing closed. I squeeze him. ‘I love you.’
He smiles. ‘I love you too.’
THREE
Fourteenth of November
Two Thousand and Four
I
Houses surround us, trailing off into the distance. Long terraces lining both sides of the road. We’re sat against a wall, when people walk by they glance without interest, we’re just two youths chilling out on the street. My legs are crossed, laying on my lap is a plastic container, the mushrooms sit inside it, looking up at us. It’s early in the day. Just gone eleven o’clock and here we are again, facing the portal to another realm. A bottle of water sits alongside the container, flavoured to remove the taste.
I lock eyes with Sam. We’re ready, on the count of three we shall begin. One, two, three. The first mushroom is lifted. Chew. Rancid taste oozing out, a warning that these small fungi are toxic. A swig of water, the faint strawberry taste only touching the corners of the mushroom’s bitterness. Bite, chew, swallow. One after another the mushrooms disappear into our stomachs, psychosomatic headaches trying to make us stop this poisoning of our bodies. I gag. Swallow water. Lock the contents in the belly. Let nature take control. Digest, release, adventure.
The container is empty. We look at each other, let our headaches fade before moving. Rise and walk. Our journey more thought out today, well, only the start. We planned the initial start point, we’ll let magic guide us from there. Terraced houses moving alongside us, long unidentifiable buildings filled with the artefacts of life. We turn a corner, returning to the bustle of Camden High Street, the peaceful road left behind, discarded from our memories like the plastic containers. Gone, forgotten, their purpose served.
We move, our feet knowing exactly where to take us even though it is a path we have never walked. Brain dazed from yesterday, excited by the present, we allow ourselves to be led by a cosmic guide. Set the location, switch to autopilot, sit back and enjoy the ride.
The train doors open, they close, we sit. Watching the darkness outside as we are shuttled across a city, disregarding the limitations of the aboveground world. Buildings mean nothing down here, we move through them like ghosts. Millions of lives unaware of our passing. All around us constant change, nothing’s static. At each station people rise and leave to be replaced by new faces. Faces we’ll never see again, forgotten in seconds. We, like they, are the same, faces seen, studied then replaced by the next intake. Life on rotation. Only when you’re famous do unknown people remember your face. Put a name to the image and it’s stored for life. To be one of those faces. Constantly remembered. Seen once and recognised for a lifetime. Known by people who as far as you are concerned do not exist. A reputation proceeding your presence. A superstar on the lips of man.
The train stops again. This time we rise. Leave all these people behind, our places filled by new life. A ghost of a memory, fading to nothing within seconds, forgotten as soon as our feet hit this platform at Southwark station. Life goes on. We move, our destination ever closer.
The station is quiet, which suits us. Everyone that is around are walking in pairs. Couples, male and female. Sam and I standing out against this image. An escalator, moving us at the same pace as each one across the capital’s underground levels. As we rise, next to us a couple descend. They move with jerky movements, as though frames have been cut out of their life’s film. Arm at mouth, now at side, no movement in-between. They’re smiling, fake smiles, false laughter. Robots following a programmed routine. Cold, emotionless eyes turn to us. My hand on Sam’s back. Male and male. Lips curl with disgust before they let loose a giggle, a frame cut giggle. I see Sam’s eyes looking at them, watching. He looks at me. We smile. It has started.
Leave the station and turn a corner, the street is unnaturally quiet. Dead. London after a holocaust. A film set, colourised. Characters in a movie, our film being projected for the entertainment of millions. A noise, distorted, a police siren crying out in the distance, getting closer. The car speeds past, rushing to the scene of a crime. We stand at the crossing, habit making us wait for the green man, his beeps echo out eerily across the silent environment. Cross the road and stop.
Dead London, devoid of noise, movement, life. I look at Sam. ‘What the fuck?’ My words sound loud.
‘It’s like a film set.’ He laughs. ‘Dom, we’re film stars.’
Two actors following a script, awaiting the horde of zombies soon to attack. The quiet before the storm of action. We wait. I turn full circle. Nothing. No extraterrestrial warship raising in the horizon, towering over the buildings searching for survivors. Nothing.
‘I don’t like this,’ Sam says.
‘Where is everyone?’
‘Dom, we’re alone.’ Sam’s voice filled with mock fear. ‘We’re the last survivors.’
I laugh, squeeze his side with my hands. ‘And I wouldn’t want to be with anyone else.’ He smiles, I continue, ‘Let's get moving.’ We have a destination to get to.
Turn a corner, noise. The scene changes instantly, transferred from one film to another. Dark, colours dulled. A seedy landscape of filth, deep bass beats hitting us. Dark industrial noise this film’s soundtrack. A wasted London, post apocalypse and dying. The rivet-heads formed their own colony and we’re trespassing on it. Walk forward, eyes to the ground. We’re not here for trouble.
The noise getting louder. We’re approaching an alleyway, sheltered by the bridge raising above it, a train line above a forgotten pit. People. Dark, seedy people. Greasy haired and dreadlocked, clothes ripped and dirty. On our side of the road the vampiric tribe watch our every move as they sit on the floor, on the other side women stand against the wall, arms folded across their chests, one foot up pressed up against it. Sluts in their miniskirts, ugly hags providing service to people with blackened souls. Their bodies a cesspool of sexual infections, their legacy a chain letter of disease. Wasted syphilitic creatures praying at an altar of sin. I can feel their eyes watching us with interest. Keep eyes forward. We’re not here for trouble. Make sure Sam’s okay, I’ll make sure no harm comes to him.
Pass out from under the bridge into the open air, the music decreasing in volume. Breathe, check we’re not being followed, move on.
Turn a corner. A new road, a new movie. Sophistication. Arty. Tall buildings, giant cubes of colour. A London painted, moments of time caught in artistic strokes, its people pausing in random poses. Life in London, a walking art. Momentary, constantly moving. Art people a
pproaching an art centre, approaching the same destination as us. An art gallery. Modern people visiting modern art.
The Tate Modern, a store hole for bright blocks of paint, sculptures of shit and rooms filled with cardboard gingerbread men. The finest modern art, people paid millions for what anyone can do. Hidden concepts in nothing. We’re walking from room to room, glancing over the work that took an artist months, months to do what a baby could do in minutes. Nothing here excites us, our senses dulled by what we see. No colours jump out at us. Surrounded by the pretentious we feel isolated. Find the exit and leave, out into the cinematic world. Why lock yourselves in a building, wandering aimlessly around with fake gasps of awe, when you could stand outside and live it? Live the art of nature, let your brain paint the picture and then hang it in the private gallery of your mind. Walk, sit, view.
Take a moment like we are doing. Sit and watch the world passing by. People’s lives played out before your eyes, your own private screening of the world’s film. The Life of Man, a foreign film with no subtitles. Make your own opinions, word it as you will. Stop, wait, listen. No one is speaking a world of English. I strain my ears to pick up a recognisable word but nothing is detected. I look to Sam. I think he’s noticed as well. ‘Why’s no one speaking English?’ I ask the obvious question.
‘I dunno. It’s fucked up. They could be insulting each other with different words that only they understand.’
‘But how can there be understanding if everyone’s talking a different language?’
‘Maybe we’re not meant to understand,’ Sam says as he stands. ‘Let's get going, I don’t like it here, all these voices are confusing me.’
I rise and we retrace our previous route in reverse. As we walk we observe, listening to people, trying to hear their conversations but unable to pick out a single word we understand, feeling like tourists in our own country, in our own capital city, our own home. Frustration. I try to close my ears from the noise, but the words bombard my senses. I want to open my mouth and shout ‘Why doesn’t anyone speak English?’ Sam and I afraid to speak as we know everyone can listen in to our words, the whole world knows English, they just refuse to speak it.
We turn a corner. Dark, gloomy, seedy. We know where we are by the film set around us. In a few paces we will see the vampiric underworld again. The air filling with the heavy bass of industrial music, the theme of discomfort for those outside the tribe. This time however we feel more confident, as we walk we survey. The prostitute wall is lined with people all waiting to enter through a door cut into the wall, a converted railway arch. The house of the music. A hidden realm where the creatures of the night can pass the daylight hours. Life in reverse, a fairytale of darkness. The diseased