21st of August, this hungry year of 2021
When about two hundred people are stuffed densely into a metal tube like atoms in a dirty piece of coal, you’re bound to see a lot of faces. Faces inside a tube, barrelling through dark and murky tunnels at speeds of 60 miles per hour. What would become of a face if it were to collide with this metal snake full of faces?
The freaks come out at night, and they become even freakier once the last train pulls up onto the platform. Hordes of people try to funnel through a small orifice in the metal snake and lunge upon seats. Those unlucky enough to grab some seat end up standing, swaying lurching, in the grips of all sorts of violent obscene movements – almost like a decrepit dance - as the snake zaps through the holes in the earth. And then there’s the faces.
What are these faces and who do they belong to? Sleeping faces, faces garbling words out of their mushy lips, wired faces, faces with masks upon masks upon masks upon masks upon masks upon masks upon……..
The faces in charge of constructing this metallic reptilian beast thought that they should adorn its innards with more faces.
How do these sleepers manage to doze through that deafening roar as if a dragon is choking on a skyscraper? Their dreamless slumber is too deep to be rocked by such ululations. They float entropically in the voids of their mind, the one which spins slowly upon its own axis once too much drink has taken over the mind and it can’t operate any longer.
The saturnine expressions of my fellow digestives within the bowels of this beast tell all sorts of heinous stories. Long and soul crushing days have bought them to this foul end, the retellings of which are too lengthy and unspeakable to be included here. They sit there awaiting their flesh to rot and their bones to dissolve and freeing them of this painful consciousness.
Then there are those who are getting one hell of a kick out of this. They just drown out the noise with some of their own, served fresh and loud from their ear/headphones. They can’t help themselves and begin bopping, banging and swaying their heads. Some tap their feet; some slap their knees. The standing ones are probably plugged into the same music these carefree ones are, dancing in convulsions on the pivot of their hands locked around the poles and railings that make up the bones of this slithering bastard.
Lurid and resplendent clothes are hanging off their bodies which vary from lithe and supple to cannon ball obesity. The snake’s meal resembles a wardrobe packed with dynamite which explodes upon swallowing. Florals, patterns, patches, blobs, splotches and splatters of intense varieties are spread all around this mass of flesh. Well, when being slowly digested inside a mechanical snake, you better dress for the occasion. Some even went as far as to wear metal chains and spikes on their worn black denim jackets to press against the digestive process. These are the sorts of people who carry a little bit of form with them in all their walks of life. Then there are also the people who are devoid of all such form. They are as blank as their expressions reflect. Don’t waste time reading their countenances because all you’ll find is grey matter.
Jaws are pressing up and down on some of these faces, their teeth are going out of control as if any moment the shovel of their skull will pop out and make a break for it. Dancing the same sort of insane dance the standing ones are, these jaws are having a hell of a time. Meanwhile there’re faces barely held together, bunches up onto the flat of their fists, these specimens are marooned – for the next 12 or so hours – out in the seas between insanity and catatonia without a raft. One of the faces just vomited a clear spray of orange fluid all across the floor as if someone just turned on a tap and the contents flowed out. Is it the venom from the snake or is it just the over consumption before they stepped in here? That question didn’t wander through the halls of anyone’s mind because instead all that stampeded through the heads of anyone close to this running vomit tap was towering disgust and fear. The whole mass rippled backwards and away from the face turning inside out, like a wildfire of repulsion spreading outwards and leaving behind a ring of ash and desertion. Those who had ran the gambit while entering the snake and trampled over people to grab a seat were now trampling over the same people, like a herd of frenzied buffaloes running amok through the streets, to get out of them. The effect this had on the people was like a plunger being pressed down on a hypodermic needle, shoving the junk from one end and into the other, then out into the vein leading to caustic ecstasy, except here the junk didn’t escape out a tiny hole but just got more densely packed together in one end like a clotted artery. Meanwhile the human vomit tap sat all by himself in the other end of the snake, hunched over an invisible table and continuing to detox itself. While everyone went stupid with sickness and screaming fear, I sat there cheering at this man as if he just pulled off a triple backflip off the floor. I found it impressive how the face turned tap jettisoned the contents of its stomach without even twitching a muscle on its face. It simply opened its mouth and out it all came like lies out of a pathological mind.
Amidst this madness, a face next to me asked why I wasn’t wearing a mask. I turned to look at the face responsible for saying such nonsense, it was wearing a mask, and I was ready to tear it off – and the other thousand underneath it.
“I don’t need one” I said to the half-faced man.
Little did I know that I had just opened a headache inducing door which would last me the remainder of the process which would dissolve either me or him first. A running commentary of puritanical bullshit came spewing out of this face, like the vomit of the former but with more vociferance, on why our erstwhile former face is drinking too much and puking on the train. Why, oh why indeed? To this face, the human race is reaching a head of dangerous debauchery – especially the white race – because all they do is drink and have no sense of moderation and don’t care about their loved ones and all they ever do is drink, drink, drink, DRINK. The stink of this man’s words was beginning to overpower the fumes emanating from the pool of sick as it wobbled back and forth by the plunging slither of the electric snake. I tried to tune out this terrible frequency, and despite the fact hadn’t an iota of my attention, he continued babbling like a homeless preacher in the street, beaming out his nonsense to the oblivious masses. Eventually, once my headache reached a painful orgasmic climax, the face right next to melted into a steaming pile of burnt muscle and flesh, blood spurting out of obnoxious orifices and bones sticking out of the amorphous heap. A pleasurable grumble like that of ungreased wheels screeching echoes through the inside of the snake.
I wonder how my face looks like to them; what story does the discoloration around my eyes tell? Does my haggard expression give away that I’m looking down into the abyss of a physical collapse? Are my thoughts radiating out like a star losing heat, just like the rest of them? No need to get tangled up in these worries, I’ll just bury myself into my book and wait until I meet the same fate as the face next to me on just another strange night in the tube.
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