Orpheus In The Underground

At the foot of the down escalator, grey Monday figures filed past him and moved deeper into the earth. He played his guitar and sought to liven their souls with each plucked note. But their eyes remained downcast, except to glare get out of our way.

Until she descended: her lips pink as pomegranate as she smiled, eyes brown as autumn as she winked to warn him that the Station Inspector was close behind.

He followed her through the tunnel arch, still playing even as the crowd elbowed and jostled him aside. Only mice foraging between the tracks halted to hear him play, whiskers twitching in time, black eyes glistening like beads of jet.

The rails clacked a metallic beat. A roar of dragon-hot breath as a train approached. The mice disappeared into the tiniest cracks in the tunnel wall.

He glimpsed the flex of thigh muscles beneath the swish of her skirt as she boarded the train. He continued to trail her and pressed into the carriage. The sight of his guitar caused raised eyebrows behind the meticulous folds of broadsheet newspapers. Until a tourist squeezed in behind him and occupied more-than-his-fair-share of space. Backpack trumped guitar in the game of who-was-the-more-inconsiderate-twat?

His guitar hung at a jaunty angle from its strap, jutting up between them. Wood with a double entendre.

The crinkle at the corner of her eyes, the tilt of her nose, the quirk of her lips as she spoke. He gathered it was an amused remark, but did not catch her words as the train gathered speed and thundered into darkness.

By contrast, her perfume was a clear glissando. He became self-conscious of his own shabbiness. His t-shirt as old and unwashed as his beard, the cheap instant coffee staining his tongue.

Then, the Gates of Hell flung open wide. A radiance more red than blood. Concussion of heat from the very Pit of Damnation. Screams of souls torn from life into torment. Quake of walls broken down, of the ground shattered beneath their feet.

An acrid reek of scorching cloth acted like smelling salts and roused him. He opened his eyes and tried to make sense of the expressionist gloom. Emergency lights flickered, a greasy looking shade of yellow. Specks of soot drifted. Negative snow on the warm air.

Something wet kept hitting his face and running down his back, under his t-shirt. There was another cloying smell, like an old copper-bottomed kettle being heated on a gas flame. Like fresh, raw meat placed bloody on a barbecue grill.

He tried to move, to extricate himself from the claustrophobic crush of bodies. A grinding pain from his ankle forced him to keep still. The lower part of his leg disappeared into a jagged hole in the carriage floor and was trapped in the twisted metal.

Suddenly, his ears popped. He realised how eerie the silence had been. Now, the tunnel echoed with screams and moans and cries for help.

A face appeared at the joining window with the next carriage. Someone tried to force the door open, but it was buckled and jammed in its frame and blocked by fallen bodies.

“Stay calm,” came a muffled yell. “Help will be here soon.”

She stirred beside him. Eyes wide in the gloom. Face smudged and hair dishevelled. But still beautiful in a just-got-out-of-bed rumpled style. She was also pinned in place by a broken seat and twisted length of hand-rail.

Tiny fragments of glass glittered on her cheeks as she mustered a smile for him.

“Hey, Mr Guitar Man,” she whispered huskily. “Won’t you play a song for me?”

He pulled his guitar from beneath a man’s remains. Tried to ignore the crude butchery of bone and gristle. Stark as a scene from ‘Eraserhead’.

One of its strings was broken, the rest out of tune. He picked and strummed until he had the measure of its sound.

“For fuck’s sake,” called one voice, cracked with agony. “That’s all we fucking need.”

There were a few shushes from around the carriage as he began to play. He had no idea of the tune. Could think of no appropriate song. Instead, he allowed his fingers to form their own patterns. To pluck some hope of peace and reassurance from steel wires and hollow wood.

She hummed along with him until her dry throat gave out. His fingers tired and the music grew slow and dreamy. He could see shapes moving beneath the hole in the floor. Ruby light in the eyes of rats drawn by his music. Or the smell...

”Come with me.”

The light spilled through an open door. Beyond it, there was no music, yet boundless harmony.

... rescue services were criticised for their response times... whether more lives could have been saved...

... young unidentified male, well known locally as a busker...bled to death from wounds to leg and partially severed foot...

... Miss D----- impaled upon a splinter of wood from a smashed guitar... which gradually worked its way into her heart...

... it is our conclusion... due to the severity of their traumatic injuries... it is unlikely any of the victims would have survived...

... beyond the purview of this report to investigate claims made by survivors to have heard music emanating from the destroyed carriage...