right, love?” the mother asks anxiously, stroking my hand.
“I…I think so,” I reply as blood rushes into my limbs. “What happened? Did I fall onto the tracks?”
“No, nothing half that dramatic. Just tripped on the platform.” Dark pupils dance within the daughter’s bright green eyes. “But you looked a right mess!”
I blink and look around, trying to clear my head. So that explains why the platform, formerly packed with people, is now nearly empty and why the women’s voices echo dully against the damp brick walls. The train must have arrived, released its passengers, and swallowed up new ones, all while I was in la-la land.
“How long was I out of it?” Fingers still shaking, I explore my jaw and cheek, mining for injuries.
The mother glances at her watch and frowns. “Can’t be five minutes? Three, maybe four.”
I sit up and clutch my head, waiting for the world to stop spinning. “Help me up,” I ask.
“Are you well enough?” the daughter poses breathlessly.
“Only one way to find out.”
The women lift me to my feet, each taking a shoulder. Once I’m fully upright and my head clears, I look down and see what remains of Celia’s manuscript: an uneven stack of papers spread limply on top of my backpack, which is balanced near the platform’s edge in a deflated heap. As I turn I see dozens of pages scattered up and down the tracks, some intact, others confettied into tiny shreds.
Frantic, I grab as many loose pages as I can and stuff them into the backpack, which still contains the cell phone, credit card, and £5000 cash. “Please help me,” I ask the women. “We’ve got to get these papers before the next train arrives.” An Edgware train is due in three minutes, according to the electronic sign blinking steadily above my head.
Dutifully the women comply, collecting handfuls of torn, stained, and crumpled pages and passing them to me. We’ve got most of the papers off the platform when a rumble deep beneath our feet heralds the next train. For one desperate moment I look down at the papers still littering the tracks.
“Come away from there, dear,” the mother beckons gently, taking my arm. “You can’t salvage that lot.”
“But you don’t understand,” I protest as the daughter slips the backpack, containing the remnants of Celia’s novel, over my shoulder. “This manuscript wasn’t even mine.”
They raise their palms and shrug sadly, indicating that my cause is lost. Meanwhile, a dozen or so passengers who have traveled down the escalator gather on the platform in twos and threes.
“Can you manage?” The mother lifts her chin toward the approaching train. I nod. My ears ring, my body shivers, but I know if I don’t get on the next train, right now, I will never again ride a subway in my life. I close my eyes as blood rockets through my skull. The brick walls constrict and the train becomes a bullet in a barrel, a malevolently vicious thing. The mother-daughter duo steps closer and absorbs me into the closed circle of their interior, where I revel in the foreign warmth.
The train arrives and shudders to a stop, inches from my face. A buzzer sounds, the doors steam open, and for a moment I am paralyzed. Then I surrender to the force of anxious bodies propelling me into the carriage, where I collapse into the first seat beside the door. The train lurches forward, pauses, then picks up speed. I did it. I survived.
From Tottenham Court Road there are seven stops to Belsize Park, the station closest to Celia’s flat. Goodge Street, Warren Street, Euston —the stations blink by through the windows, offering brief respites of warmth and light between blinding stretches of damp and rapid darkness. My body relaxes, carving out a space for the pain in my left wrist, a pain that increases with each passing minute. By Mornington Crescent I’ve lost the dent between wrist and hand; by Camden Town, purple and black bruises breach my forearm. By Chalk Farm, my fingers
“I…I think so,” I reply as blood rushes into my limbs. “What happened? Did I fall onto the tracks?”
“No, nothing half that dramatic. Just tripped on the platform.” Dark pupils dance within the daughter’s bright green eyes. “But you looked a right mess!”
I blink and look around, trying to clear my head. So that explains why the platform, formerly packed with people, is now nearly empty and why the women’s voices echo dully against the damp brick walls. The train must have arrived, released its passengers, and swallowed up new ones, all while I was in la-la land.
“How long was I out of it?” Fingers still shaking, I explore my jaw and cheek, mining for injuries.
The mother glances at her watch and frowns. “Can’t be five minutes? Three, maybe four.”
I sit up and clutch my head, waiting for the world to stop spinning. “Help me up,” I ask.
“Are you well enough?” the daughter poses breathlessly.
“Only one way to find out.”
The women lift me to my feet, each taking a shoulder. Once I’m fully upright and my head clears, I look down and see what remains of Celia’s manuscript: an uneven stack of papers spread limply on top of my backpack, which is balanced near the platform’s edge in a deflated heap. As I turn I see dozens of pages scattered up and down the tracks, some intact, others confettied into tiny shreds.
Frantic, I grab as many loose pages as I can and stuff them into the backpack, which still contains the cell phone, credit card, and £5000 cash. “Please help me,” I ask the women. “We’ve got to get these papers before the next train arrives.” An Edgware train is due in three minutes, according to the electronic sign blinking steadily above my head.
Dutifully the women comply, collecting handfuls of torn, stained, and crumpled pages and passing them to me. We’ve got most of the papers off the platform when a rumble deep beneath our feet heralds the next train. For one desperate moment I look down at the papers still littering the tracks.
“Come away from there, dear,” the mother beckons gently, taking my arm. “You can’t salvage that lot.”
“But you don’t understand,” I protest as the daughter slips the backpack, containing the remnants of Celia’s novel, over my shoulder. “This manuscript wasn’t even mine.”
They raise their palms and shrug sadly, indicating that my cause is lost. Meanwhile, a dozen or so passengers who have traveled down the escalator gather on the platform in twos and threes.
“Can you manage?” The mother lifts her chin toward the approaching train. I nod. My ears ring, my body shivers, but I know if I don’t get on the next train, right now, I will never again ride a subway in my life. I close my eyes as blood rockets through my skull. The brick walls constrict and the train becomes a bullet in a barrel, a malevolently vicious thing. The mother-daughter duo steps closer and absorbs me into the closed circle of their interior, where I revel in the foreign warmth.
The train arrives and shudders to a stop, inches from my face. A buzzer sounds, the doors steam open, and for a moment I am paralyzed. Then I surrender to the force of anxious bodies propelling me into the carriage, where I collapse into the first seat beside the door. The train lurches forward, pauses, then picks up speed. I did it. I survived.
From Tottenham Court Road there are seven stops to Belsize Park, the station closest to Celia’s flat. Goodge Street, Warren Street, Euston —the stations blink by through the windows, offering brief respites of warmth and light between blinding stretches of damp and rapid darkness. My body relaxes, carving out a space for the pain in my left wrist, a pain that increases with each passing minute. By Mornington Crescent I’ve lost the dent between wrist and hand; by Camden Town, purple and black bruises breach my forearm. By Chalk Farm, my fingers
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