UNDERGROUND
by J. J. DeCeglie
The boom flash had knocked him clear off his feet. He lay there. Pain though it was distant. Disorientation of explosion. A ruptured fracture. Things rushing, screaming violent acid smoke, some frightened dark in a tunnel, seconds of shining metal in spark light, fraying buzz, the train wasn’t moving. He was flat on his back. Burning carpet and upholstery and flesh. He knew what had happened, it wouldn’t register, he knew, he couldn’t understand, where’s the redheaded girl? shadows were moving still, past him, over him, coughing on smouldering debris, treading on him, by him, the warm stickiness was blood, he knew that, but the train wasn’t moving, the redhead was gone, she had reminded him of the other one, the one from far off back home, simply summer simple, sunniness and fair, he’d been looking at her from where he stood, she back at him from where she sat, over her book blinking, making eyes occasionally, during the underground halt and bustle, the smoothest crank, swooping through caverns humming, the blood was oozing from his chest, the wound was packed with shrapnel, he could feel it still hot on his fingers, tried to dislodge it slightly, he could tell it was interfering with bone, could tell by the tightness, and he could breath fine, so his lung wasn’t pierced, it was his leg that worried him anyhow, and where the girl had gone was on his mind too, his leg though, the detonation had ripped seats from their bolted spot, he’d felt the car crash deep slam into his thigh, the pulse had thrown him way back, he was sure of the crack, didn’t dare move his leg, it ached intensely now, he acted, undid his belt strictly, lashed it off in swift steadiness, careful not to move, cautious, easy, threaded it under, fastened it at his leg’s very top, not too tight, femur’s heal, he didn’t want to lose the entire thing, though broken femurs rupture femoral arteries, he held the belt end tight in his fist, don’t move, don’t sever, it was hard with the pain of his chest, he managed though, concentrated on breathing and awareness, he could feel the swell in his flesh, the firmness welling, internal bleed, losing blood without bleeding, just going to work was all, same sorry day in and out, some brown haired broad last night, her place, drank too much, couldn’t get a seat, couldn’t read, stood, watched her, her watching me, swept back in time not to a place reminiscent of her but rather of a time that smacked of me reminiscencing of her, of her, of her, of her, it fucking hurts now, the bone is broken, I’m haemorrhaging inside, I was standing, days of insomnia stinging my eyes, wishing I was reading, gut aching from no food except coffee, forgetting about some wretched fuck that was just hours ago, looking at her there making me not being here but rather away, teaching in the pool with those kids running riot, the warm hush chlorine smell reminding me of thinking about her, her rusty red hair and almond lime eyes, pale snow skin and sharp features, thinking how much love you waste on someone who never even knows it exists, though she probably wasted an equal amount on me, if not then some other, we all do that, it’s not a waste, I’m not sure I have any left to waste now anyway, just keep still kid, don’t pass out, he could sense the pangs of tiredness coming, he knew it was coming with the blood loss, the probable concussion, thirst now too, he tightened the belt by pulling at it, thought lose the leg not the life, never in his life had he wished he was at home in Fremantle more than right then, it was an instantaneous occurrence, hitting as hard as the bomb had, it came and fled, left him in the London underground, alone, helpless subterranean, waiting on aid to arrive, it was dark still, his eyes were mildly adjusted, he had them open most of the time and concentrated on awareness, every so often the pain shot through him, struck him, closed his eyes, stabbed at him without anaesthetic of any sort, he gripped at something in the dark, gritted his teeth, one was loose, don’t move boy, the discomfort soared, he was fighting fading, the girl with the lengthy red hair kept showing in his mind, not the one on the train but the one she reminded him of, he’d tried to be a writer since he arrived in Europe, travelling solid at first then settling, working days, writing nights, doing it with a real discipline, working at it, toughing it out, determined to be important, but his leg throbbed, he thought as long as it throbs my heart is still beating, that girl may have made it out, he only saw the one from before, it couldn’t be helped, she may be up on the surface having the abrasions on her beautiful freckled face cleaned up by some handsome paramedic, he thought again too, producing thinking this time that only added to the physical distress, she may be scattered all over the train though, she was even closer to him than I was, she is dead he thought, she is, she is, what an awful way for something so lovely to die, just shred apart, ended dreadfully, he wasn’t thinking of the girl on the train though, he was thinking of the one back home, the one he hadn’t seen for years, he’d written about her once, in a different part of England, not London, when he had first arrived, he’d thought that what he’d written was fine, clear, he recalled it somewhat, that and other sections, wading in writing comes to him drifting now, on the floor of a train exploded, way underground, amidst metal and limbs strewn, sentences draw closer to him, burst from parts of pages, waiting to die or be rescued, muddled literary consciousness streaming,
period two, Monday morning, year eight swimming, there’s six in the water, he’s taking the class, there’s a full moon glistening upward, boy’s not in the water are raiding, into the pool, boards, buckets, screaming at them, I join in, laugh harder, thrown further, the flotsam and jetsam. The kids in not listening to anything Pred instructs, my four turn on taps, throw things back in, others are very close to in, jousting matches, a psycho sorry mother, “Stop that”, “Don’t is a million miles away and you realise you could be drunk in Amsterdam, or lazing in Brussels, in Spain, I’ll find all that, I’ll tingle in anticipation soon enough. lands in the water, soon follows, they both sink to lonely graves. I hear Pred “Fuck this feeling I had about that redheaded girl, fiery green eyes and her skin like blushing cream, lovely legs with a tiny waist, hips. She liked me. I never thought of her voice on account of her eyes. Her hair the stuff of Scottish ballads. We’d talk, flirtful, I’d stare at her sometimes, did anything about it? And then one never seemed to go out as much, I fell in love with almost having someone but not quite, I bask in it, as some punk wets me, then while I’m telling him off other bastards begin reraiding and launching, as on a boat going down and carrying too much weight, glow of the water is like her, leave it all night to talk to her at two a.m. I never laid a hand yet we know each other in eternity, like from before, afternoons spent near her, the local pool, us chatting both wish hoping that rumours wouldn’t spread all over, to work and hoping, her car, Fremantle and spending half the night just God knows where, doing God knows what in England, trying to tame unintelligible terrors the humid hush of the air reminded me, gave me a wonderful feeling inside, grave and buried. Someone opens the poolside door, his mate throws in a bomb, in the middle of a trance knocked clear by Pred who tells me that he expects me to battle free. I shrug and say” Yeah, for the door of the pool room, I’m joined by Pred, we together walk into the change rooms, fuck England in general. boys. Some clowns don’t bring kit, so out, Pred and I do the double on watch for devil induced behaviour. Pred waits for the last hombre to change, we already see the lunacy cranking up as if over the sweltering indoor pool water. The equipment room, hurling anything that floats, ten foot long rescue poles, Pred’s in and they don’t stop but instead grow bored and helpful and start retrieving the pool, fighting, splashing, drowning, wander in and out of the room, pick up the emergency phone, push each other, even bigger rescues poles off the racks, the pool’s edge. I rush around whispering “ please”, “Boys use your brains”, my mind, I’m wasting my life, I should be scouting out London or warming my eyes, i once knew, let go somewhere again, a chair flies through the air by my soul, the rail you use to climb in sinks as if a lifeless wonder, like a frozen corpse to this fucking place!” and I remember I once knew, her eyes were a balm, a straight and pointed little nose that gave way to young fertile broad staring at me with that serious stare would be as sweet as it was a wave of long pure red, the talk of people, young people, fanciful, wish I knew her better, I never, to the bar, I used to see another and she was gone. That feeling is so exquisite and hopeful, it’s that my entire right leg, drenches it and watching Pred retrieve sunken chair treasure, equipment back in the pool, like sailors with too much weight. The reflective fire blue eyes and I remember nights where I’d see her and then give her lifts home no hand on her, never tried, but the mountains know the ground, they rise to show children how to swim, we had more time to talk, our little pool staff community, driving up, be there, going to that bar, looking for her. And right now she’s there and I’m here in Walsall, bleakest town and all the smell of chlorine reminds me of is her and how that feeling is lost, it actually spits in the pool, handful of hot chips which float. I’m whacked out of my can’t take much more of these fuckers, then push the last kid out, look back sadly and burst into laughter, rich South African accent quotes “Those Bastards” and both regret coming to work and trying for anything the intensity of the soreness levelled in him mostly, he rocked with it, sometimes fanging with hurt at searing moments, jagged internal stings slashing, letting him know he’s badly damaged within, top of his leg full with blood that should be in other parts of him, wakefulness the struggle now, stillness important too, it’s clotting or still bleeding, you’re either dead or you’re not, he had reasoned that he may die, that nostalgia and philosophy would only make for a furthered awful demise, religion even more so, that everything could add nothing, that nothing could be gained, what matters? what could? that didn’t stop the flush quips travelling into his mind, lavish wonders for him brightly, in the state he was in there is no telling to him or for him whether what he thought was actuality or the whim narratives of a writer, embellished life through words and pens and verse, things slotting rapid through his brain mixing true with whatever was coming to him, with what was already in him, those clear days in the sun slit shade reading the great ones while breathing clean cut grass, smoking good cigars in the evening, cold foreign beer swished in his mouth, the smell of the ocean in the city, dark lusty kisses in cars, strange perfume, girl’s perfect backsides warbling under tight tucked skirts, ejaculation without a condom, nothing so true, writing, her smiling, her gritting those perfect teeth, sighing, winning, eyes, healthy hair, lost and loss, Paris, moon blaze on the river water and sidewalk, whilst drifting again part rambling the pain shoots through his leg into his gut, his eyes slap open, they can’t get to us because of the wreckage, he’s quickly sure of it, convinced all of a sudden, the platform a twisted mess of rubble, he’d seen it from before, the other times it had happened, sometimes survivors were pulled hours later, eyes blinking and crying on the surface of the planet covered in soot and dried blood, hailed heroes for just living, don’t die, don’t, he wasn’t certain he would live, though he was of the efforts he would put into trying, his stomach was tender now, was it bleeding into there, where was the redhead? why did she die? why? she wasn’t the redhead kid, think fucking straight, he tried, think right, she wasn’t the redhead, she reminded you of the redhead, the redhead is back home, probably fucking some guy she kinda loves, smiling and wondering what happened to you, I don’t see god here, I just don’t, or any philosophy, you just die and that’s that, the redhead dies with you, what matters? she does, beautiful maiden youthful reminiscence dies, sins extinguish, they end here, with you, he feels nausea coming at him, and thirst, feels clammy, dank and pale, part of him wants to die cause living like this is too much, there’s no sun, no stars, just man and what he does with his life, I thought I would write and indulge and live outside that appalling ennui setting, find bohemia, or buddha, what? Christ? he wonders how much of nothing all the books he’s read and words he’d written are worth now that his femur is snapped and he’s bleeding to death, no words are worth anything when you’re dying, no books or films are important, he questioned their importance all over, damned them momentarily, in weakness and fear, they’re not important when you are dying, nothing is, but when you are living they are of immense value, when you’re living it is all there is, I feel forgiven now anyway, for every minor grievance, hell, I didn’t do nothing anyway, the wheezing came from behind him, I ran away to here and wrote, he could hear it he was sure, left it all behind and tried for my art, movement and wheezing, a damn worthy cause, he flipped his head back, chin to the roof, then to his left shoulder, someone was moving, fighting to breath, he felt his grip on consciousness slide for a second, he grabbed himself, I’ll finish he thought, I will, I will, I am, that wheeze, he moved his left arm out from his side and felt amid the debris, patted around, he found it, squeezed, a gasping grunt returned, his chest cut with pain from the shrapnel lodged in it, this was the hardest thing he’d ever been part of, harder than living, than love and loss, than writing well, this death was so hard for him as he fought to live, if he would die and he was sure he would now, he would die with nobility of a sort, something noble, actions not thoughts, he reckoned that, he fought floating unconsciousness, held back the thirst biting at him and the vomit, he knew, the redhead was dead, unwritten, he released his grip on the foot he’d found, then let go of the belt, rush of blood agony punched through him, he placed his hands by his sides, his breathing was deep and stuttered with the pain, his jaw ached from clenching, he shuffled upward toward the wheeze, things jabbing into his underside, the leg felt incorrect then, his eyes rolled, rebleed, time was departing from him, he felt at his right leg, it was ballooning firmly, stuck with heat, he felt it, bone pushing skin, death pushing life, he threw out his left arm, weakly shoved around, the body was there, the wheezing guided him, he touched a face, stubble, a man, travelled down past the neck of it and felt the stop hit, crushed chest with weight of what felt like a train seat, maybe two, perhaps some bodies, the guy was broken like him, he tried to make him out through the dim fever he was in, he looked Paki, looked young, I’m dead, the move has killed me, the leg is dead and it’s spreading, he vomited onto his chest, he couldn’t be sure of it but it smelt as if blood were in it, blood and bile and coffee, save him, he can deal with life some more, you’ve dealt with death long enough, he turned his head, vomited again, he was having a drink with the redhead in Fremantle, talking about life, his books, he had a girlfriend but wanted her intensely, the drinking made that easier, her hair was long red wavy paint splashed about her shoulders, her smile like a sprite, they could smell the ocean on the breeze, he gave everything he had in his arms to lifting what was on the Paki bloke’s chest, only a slight heave, battling fainting wooze, the second time both arm’s worth and his torso lifting off the train floor, excruciation white hot with dying triumph, the leg throbbed hard and fast, he held it off the nearby chest slightly by wedging his forearm vertical between the floor and the load, hand and elbow bearing, it propped there, the wheezing ceasing, replaced by shallow breathing, his life ceasing, replaced with nothing, he was kissing her against some university wall in the quiet late night streets with orange streetlight glow, suffering the leg horror finally, his arm fixed in place vertical to the train horizontal, kissing her neck and collarbones, breathing her in, writing importance and meaning fell all over the planet, no more throbbing, or beating, or thinking, or dying, you can’t kill the dead he thought, you just can’t.