Sugarcane

That evening I waited for you I knew with a finality I could not feel yet that you would not arrive, that I would not see you again, and that I would not find your name in any of the papers. \n[[<|third static]]

[[(on her desk, they found three scribbled pages suggesting directions for future work)|first static]]

"//I swear I saw one. Only once. Shining eyes, right in front of me. No time. 30 tons of metal passed right through the skin without a sound or bump."// \n[[<|second static]]

//[[(on her desk, they found three scribbled pages suggesting directions for future work)|first static]]//

I return a few days later, go down into the station. Around the public tunnels in circles and circles, learn the surfaces and the places to hide. Grates that can be opened and slipped through, cupboards no longer in use. \n\nI prepare my instruments. Heavy metal torch, gloves, war time and engineer's map, poorly lit photographs. \n[[<|second static]]

Her body shines in the dark. the tracks glitter beneath her. and then she begins to sing. I move towards her but she never gets any closer. \n[[<|third static]]

Each time I looked at her photograph in the papers, I realised I was hoping to see your face. \n[[<|third static]]

In the evenings I wait outside the train station and draw the patterns in the near by towerblock lights as though they were a code to me. \n[[<|first static]]

the songs she sings at the other end of the tunnel

//"Think about it. It's the perfect place for them. You can sit there for hours if you're non-descript enough. Thousands of people pass you, all going in different directions. \nYes, I see them. I know them now, most of them, soon as I set eyes on them. Some are better at hiding even than that. Crafty. But I always see them in the end. Don't make much of it, mind. I watch them follow people home. I've seen it myself. And then they stand outside and look in at the light but I don't stay long enough to know what happens after that. "// \n[[<|second static]]

It is night. I pause at the top of the escalator before going down. \n[[<|second static]]

//"Occupational hazard, that's what you've got to understand, that's what I've always understood. Can't blame yourself, the tracks are built this way. No time to stop"// \n[[<|first static]]

I don't remember how much later it was that I realised you were not coming, that I turned around to entrance again by the bridge only to find a man stationed by the ticket barriers explaining to the gathered crowd no, nothing going from here now, passenger incident, no, not for another 45 minutes at least. \n[[<|first static]]

I had been waiting for fifteen minutes already at that point. The night was cold. I checked my phone frequently for new messages. I folded my hands together under my sleeves to keep them warm. I only recognised her in the papers afterwards because she was wearing the same jacket as yours, and had the same length and colour hair (and after all there must be thousands of people with that same jacket, tens or hundreds of thousands with that same hair) I turned to greet you and her face was so different to yours it felt like that moment in a fairy tale when we see the disguised witch up close for the first time.\n[[<|first static]]

//"They say there's all kinds, down there, in the tunnels. New species of mice, deep down, never left, never come to the surface. The colour of their fur adapted to dirt. Or is that moths? Still, never come out, they say. "//\n[[<|first static]]

//"Official figures gathered between April 2012 and June 2013 suggest a total of 5 fatal accidents and 53 suicides, not counting for stations in zones 5 and 6 which fall of out the remit of the request. These figures suggest an overall increase of 4.2%, which is a cause for concern but still represents an average drop of .9% when increased overall passenger numbers are taken into account."// \n[[<|first static]]

I read about her in all the newspapers. A fragile beauty, they wrote. A sculptor. A tragic loss. In the photographs I do not recognise her. Except for the coat- your coat, blurry on a hook in the far corner. \n[[<|second static]]

//"There have been many reports of the sound of a young girl singing emerging from various stations along the Victoria line. However, witnesses have failed to described the song in any consistent detail, and various experiments in the late 80s found only static. It has been speculated that the echoing of old unused metal tracks being dismantled might produce an effect similar to a high pitched wail."// \n[[<|third static]]

I stood outside her studio, watched her things be carried into vans. There was so much of it, slabs of wood and stone, tarpaulin and plastic that fluttered in the breeze. It took hours and still was not done. I imagined having a life with that kind of heft to it, something that would take so much to dismantle. \n[[<|third static]]

"//They're everywhere. You can seem them at any station if you look hard enough. The way the light shines right through their bodies."// \n[[<|second static]]

//"I lost my girl down there. No one believes me. I turned around and she was walking right out onto the tracks as though she could see someone at the end of the tunnel. The railway denied it, of course, concocted a story that she'd been been adopted years ago, and that I wasn't allowed to see the papers."// \n[[<|third static]]