Fictional Novel Chapter Five: the rat

Kurt Hamilton had boarded a Piccadilly line train at Piccadilly Circus station.  This was a regular part of his day, to take the Bakerloo line from Marylebone and then change at Piccadilly Circus for the dark blue line.  It was about 7 pm today, still pretty much rush hour for the transport system of London.  

Inhabitants of London know that the underground between 5 pm and about 7 pm is like a battleground, only one feels like a part of the losing ranks, trying to shake off the chasing troops of the victorious army but in this case, you do not know who the enemy – is it time, the past eight hours of the day, anticipation of a relaxed evening, fear that the whole tube network would vanish before you caught the next train or simply a habit!  The focus and determination of the stereotypical London Underground commuter to catch the ‘next train’ would perhaps make Isaac Newton look like Humpty Dumpty in front of him.

Kurt went through the daily ritual of inserting his travel card through the ticket check machine and waiting in front of the lift.  He hated lifts in underground stations.  They were a waste of time and a memoir from the primitive days.  But he was unlucky because both the stations he used five days a week, this and Holloway Road, had lifts leading down to the platform instead of escalators.  The next step involved waiting at the platform while the electronic display stated, ‘Cockfosters, 2 mins’.  “Relief, it is not 10 mins as with many other days,” thought Kurt.

As usual, the train was crowded to the point of explosion.  With practice, he knew where to stand, at a point towards the end of the platform, where a set of double doors would open immediately in front of him.  As with most other days, even today this strategy helped him to squeeze past the passengers standing at the doors and find a position to stand next to the first seats on the left aisle.  The train whizzed along the tracks and all passengers went back to their positions of numbness.  After the activity of letting fellow passengers off and on the train, they resumed their quiescent postures, swiftly becoming oblivious of the world around.  In no time, the train arrived at Covent Garden and two passengers rose from the seats to disembark the train, leaving two empty seats facing each other.  If you looked at the dirty blue seats with disfigured cushioning closely, you could almost hear them heaving a sigh of relief and speaking to each other.  

“Which station is this, mate?”

“It’s only Covent Garden, mate; many more to go before we can stretch ourselves.”

But they knew that this moment of repose was short-lived, as one of them saw a standing corpse suddenly spring to life and sit hard on him with a slump.  The corpse this time was Kurt; as he prepared himself to open the afternoon edition of the Evening Standard that he had picked up from his office, unnoticed by him, another passenger boarded the train.  No passenger had taken the seat facing Kurt, as if it was reserved for the newcomer, who headed straight towards it without the slightest hint of hesitation.  He did not even have to go through the customary looking around for a vacant space; it looked like he had his sights set on this seat even as he was on the platform.

Kurt was busy reading the front-page story and as per the unwritten rules of the London Underground, simply minding his own business.  After breezing through the front-page story on the middle east crisis, an event that had been making headlines for the past few years and was starting to lose the reader’s interest, Kurt moved on to the middle page to read a story on the coming Oscars.  He had just started reading, as the train gradually pulled to a halt – it was Holborn Station.  

Kurt looked up habitually to catch a glimpse of the platform and just as he was lowering his head, he saw him again.  The man in front looking intently with piercing eyes at Kurt, the man Kurt had been seeing everyday for the past 3 weeks at this hour on the train.  And following the same routine, the man smiled.  This was no coincidence, not for the fact that you do not encounter a stranger in London everyday for three weeks in a row, but because Kurt felt that this man was trying to communicate with him.  If this were a normal circumstance where you simply start recognising someone’s face, you would at least say hello to him.  But there was something hidden here, something unsaid.  The man’s look sent the chill down Kurt’s spine, he felt numb, in fact corpselike.

Today was going to be a different day, because Kurt suddenly noticed that their coach had become empty of all passengers except for him and this man.  It seemed all the passengers, who have been his only source of strength in the previous days had simply vanished into thin air.  The section of the platform in front of their coach was empty.  There was a deathly silence as the doors opened and closed.  He did not even hear the beeping sound that the doors make before closing.  In fear and in desperation, he looked around and although there was no one on their coach, the others were full as usual.  Nothing was different in those coaches and no one seemed to notice that the adjacent coach was frightfully empty.

He heard a shrill ringing sound all around him.  It filled his head so much that he thought it would burst.  Kurt wanted to shout, but it was like having one of those nightmares when one feels cornered and wants to shout but a heavy force is holding him back – he thought he had passed out.

_________

Diary of Kurt Hamilton, year 2000

January till Mid February had no entries in the black leather book that would interest a third party.  The usual New Year resolution and two brief semi romantic anecdotes were the only events that came closest to being something different from his monotonous life.  In fact, most of the pages were left blank.

February 25, 2000

“A strange incident has been occurring to me on the tube for the past six says.  I saw a man for the sixth day in a row today.  Counting back, the first time I saw him was on the twentieth of Feb.  He unsuccessfully tried to board the same train as myself.  I remember him, because pushed by the other passengers I was almost leaning against the closed door facing the platform.  Just as the train lunged forward, the man gave a very familiar smile to me.  Although I was too hassled and squashed to smile back at him, I remembered his face because of a certain peculiar look about it.

February 26, 2000

I saw him today as we passed Leicester Square station, I think.  He was standing on the platform, facing sideways.  The train was terminating at Arnos Grove and perhaps he was going farther, because he did not try to board it.  I noticed him immediately because he was wearing the same black overcoat with the black hat and of course he still had the same strange face.  I could see him turning his face towards the train as it was on its way again and I thought I saw him smile at me again.  As the train gathered speed, I could see his smiling face on all the windows in front.  It looked like the running snapshot of an athlete taken by a professional photographer.  The image didn’t stay long, but looked like it stayed just long enough to pass a courteous smile at me.  I tried to ignore it, perhaps I was simply overworked and was hallucinating.

February 27, 2000

Perhaps today’s sighting has been the most interesting till now.  My valid Travel card was not working on the machine and so I went to the disabled access and asked the man in the blue suit to open the gate for me.  As I went through the door, he said to me, “Have a safe trip, sir”.  I was looking straight all this while, but surprised, I turned to say thanks because I thought that the man was exceedingly polite for a London Underground staff member.  My shock was greater when I saw his face.  It was the same man who smiled at me the day before and whose reflection I saw on the windows.  He had the same smile on his face even that day.

I thought I froze there for a moment.  I could feel that I was walking with my eyes transfixed on him, my head turned and looking back at him as he stood there with the smile fixed on his lips.  On the train I was wondering whether the mystery of my ghost was now solved.  Was he just working for the Underground? Seemed to make sense, but there are so many others who do the same work.  I hardly remembered the staff working at my home and work tube stations, so why did this particular man make such an impact on my mind? Why does he always smile at me and what on earth was the reflection on the windows?

March 3, 2000

I have seen him every day since under different situations.  The other day the train was delayed at Piccadilly Circus and all passengers had to wait at the platform for the next train that was not due before 12 minutes.  To kill some time, I walked up to look at the saxophone player who was playing a ‘Kenny G’ tune at the foot of the escalators.  I do not do such a thing usually for I like to keep my place on the busy platform, but it was as if the pied piper himself lured me towards him and it was he, my strange new friend.

Today he was the vendor of the Evening Standard at the station entrance.  I got such a scare that I don’t think that I will be able to go to that vendor again.  I might have to go to the newsagent for that and this means walking for an extra five minutes after work in the opposite direction.  Although in a small way, I can now feel that he is starting to affect the practical elements of my life.

March 10, 2000

I have stopped buying the Evening Standard from the station vendor after work.  But I also refuse to waste an extra five minutes by walking to the newsagent.  Therefore I compromise with the afternoon edition that I buy during lunch hour.  I have noticed something uncanny.  He always comes to me at the Underground.  When I stopped buying the final, I thought I might see him at the newsagent‘s during lunchtime, but no.  He has never haunted me anywhere else; he just appears once, while I am journeying home.  I can’t figure out why and I don’t want to rack my brains trying to do so.  Perhaps he is frightened of natural light or maybe he is the ghost of one of the underground rats.

I don’t know how to describe the man.  Physically, he must be about six and a half feet tall with a well-built body.  He has high cheekbones and a scar on the right one, like the mark left behind by a very bad fall.  His facial features are kind of puzzling.  He is white with a well-tanned skin.  He has long dark hair and contrasting blue eyes that poetically speaking, are like the colour of the sky on a clear summer’s day.  Contrary to the rest of his features, they are shaped very differently from that of a European person and they have this really penetrating look in them.  Whenever he looks at me with his long eyelashes, I feel a deep sensation within.  It is the kind of fear generated by the knowledge that he knows everything about me.  I feel that he knows my past and all the little dark secrets I have held with utmost secrecy.  I had the same feeling as a schoolboy, when my parents would glare at me after I had done something that was wrong in their eyes and tried to cover it up unsuccessfully.  It is embarrassing; he is just a stranger, why should I feel anything like that when he looks at me?

To be honest with myself, I am frightened of him.  But paradoxically, this fear is similar to the one I used to have for my father when I was a schoolboy, a fear behind which was hidden a feeling of comfort and security.  Perhaps it is the mix of the commanding face and the pacifying eyes that gives him this fatherly look.  Nowadays I yearn to see him as early in the journey as possible.  No doubt his sight still sends the same chilly sensation down my spine as it did on day one, but the feeling is virtually orgasmic the culmination of which not only brings satisfaction, but also the disappointment associated with a short-lived experience.

Whenever I leave the office now, I know that I will see him at some point of my journey home.  It can be in Marylebone or even in Holloway.  He might even be sitting next to me and I would notice him only before he got off the train.  Although a rat, his behaviour is somewhat like that of a cloud! You do not feel its presence above you until it begins to float away, uncovering the sun in the process.  It was there all along, but you feel its presence only in its absence.