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In with “Fix walkable area in subway so Dropsy can't walk beyond the darkness.”
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Jan 8, 2016 17:20
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| # ¿ May 5, 2024 23:48 |
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This desiccated corpse thirsts for newbie blood
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Jan 8, 2016 20:48
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Filth - 1199 Words “Fix walkable area in subway so Dropsy can't walk beyond the darkness.” The message said just that, scrawled in official red ink and pinned to the company corkboard. It was the only official memorandum in months. G would do no such thing, of course. If they cared so much about Dropsy walking beyond the darkness, they could come and stop Dropsy themselves. As for himself, coaxing Dropsy beyond the darkness was all he had left. They would have to come down and take it away from him themselves. He put a company token into the beverage machine and pressed for a black coffee. The machine hacked and wheezed into life before reluctantly spurting an off-brown liquid into a poly cup, with all the accuracy and exigence of a pensioner at a urinal. He took one sip, as he always did, and his face creased in disgust. He stepped out of the company breakroom and walked to the platform. Dropsy was hunched over his broom. G threw the cup. A smooth curve of coffee-sludge arced several feet, while the brittle plastic cup shattered into pieces onto the platform’s tiles. Dropsy turned at the noise, and saw that his pristine platform was dirty once more. He burbled and gurned gleefully towards G, who simply stared impassively back. Dropsy limped off towards the supply cupboard to supplant his broom for his mop, which was an exciting change of pace. G sat down on the stairwell and thought some more about the darkness. # Trains passed their station every 18 minutes, making a rate of 80 trains per day. They were never delayed, and they never stopped. The flew past like gleaming silver arrows, shot from some other world. Amidst the speed and pale sea-green windows, there were sometimes human faces, captured and lost in an instant. The trains were G’s third greatest enemy. For all their sparkling perfection, the trains wore capes of filth. In their wakes each one brought a choking dust, that settled upon the platform. And so, every 18 minutes, they swept the dust back off the platform onto the tracks. That was their job — to keep the platform clean. For whom the platform was kept clean for, it was not clear. G was usually content to let Dropsy clean the platform. He seemed to actively enjoy doing so. The only exception was the mornings, where the accumulated filth of the night’s trains was caked onto the platform and it became the work of two men. As G had discovered, if the platform was still dirty by the time he retired, the next day no food packet would arrive down the chutes. The ones upstairs, his second greatest enemy, must be watching. This was how they knew of his plan to lure Dropsy into the darkness. # Over time, as G had come to clean the platform less and less, and in turn he had come to think about the darkness more and more. Slowly he had become obsessed. In his dreams it whispered to him, and now during his waking hours, it seemed to ripple seductively like the folds of a velvet dress. “What am I hiding?” it seemed to ask him, “What lies beneath?” On his first day on the job, he had been warned in no uncertain terms to not approach the darkness. It was just there, he was told. It was none of his concern. How long ago that had been, G was unsure. Time seemed strange down in the subway. Life before he swept the platform was hazy, mostly an irrelevance. He had ignored it for tens of thousands of sweeps. Reaching the darkness from the platform wasn’t possible. It stood several feet beyond the edge. To reach it would require leaping from the platform. Yet slowly, his curiosity had grown to a fever pitch, along with a hatred for his disfigured, inarticulate companion. So, in between the arrival of the trains, he had been collecting tiles from the bathroom and gluing them to the platform wall, edging ever closer towards it. The platform floor was extended piece by painstaking piece. # Dropsy, with his disfigured face and baleful eyes, had watched G pensively as he increased his workload. He would clean it of course, it was now the platform after all. But he was afraid of the darkness. It was as if his friend was building a bridge to the dirtiest thing imaginable, and in his mind he was unsure if even his broom would be up to the task. # For G’s part, behind his equanimous face, he was seething with a mixture of pleasure and impatience. He was consumed by thoughts of the darkness, and at last it was within reach. For the rest of the day, G co-operated in cleaning the platform. He slept a dreamless sleep and woke to clean the platform all morning as well. He ate what came down the chutes in the breakroom with Dropsy, who played with his mashed potato like a child and giggled when he caught G looking. G scowled. That afternoon would be the one. G put in a token for a black coffee. For once, it tasted a little sweeter. When he descended to the platform, he descended like a king. Dropsy was there, and he watched the coffee in G’s hand like a dog to a tennis ball, now well attuned to the ritual. His eyes followed it as it left G’s fingers. But this time Dropsy’s face fell as he watched It spin gently towards the blackness. It was with a heavy heart that Dropsy went to the cupboard that time to retrieve his mop. As if scolded, he looked sulkily towards G. G meanwhile shadowed Dropsy’s every step, pupils catching the fluorescent strip lights above. Together they walked until they reached the extension. Dropsy inched closer and closer towards the darkness, taking meticulous care to sponge every drop of coffee off the floor. G was close enough to hear it whisper to him directly. In his head, he heard obscene suggestions. There was one more piece of filth that needed cleaning from the platform. # Dropsy squeezed the last of the coffee into bucket. He turned in time to see G lunging towards him with murder in darkened eyes. He backpedaled off the platform edge, in time to see the shining light of a silver arrow. Dropsy was gone in an instant, but his blood was sprayed liberally along the walls and platform. G watched in fascination as it mixed with the newly-lain dust on the platform and ran in black rivulets towards the darkness. From within the darkness itself, a sigh emerged, and it seemed to grow larger. G stood for only a moment, then mad with curiosity, stepped through into the darkness. # A young woman walked down the platform steps. In front of her a disfigured man happily swept black dust from the floor onto the tracks. At the end of the platform was a strange black wall. There was a small sign in front of it that read “Do Not Cross”. She looked at it quizzically for a moment, and didn’t give it a second thought.
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Jan 11, 2016 03:30
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Wrote bad story, now will write good story. In with a Bowie if you please.
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Jan 12, 2016 17:34
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In, 19th.
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Nov 22, 2016 13:30
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