bombing trains (unedited)

We walked into the tracks from an open hole in the sidewalk. We walked into the dark tunnel risking everything. We walked and though I was not alone and was not lonely I knew that soon momentarily immanently I should be both of these things.

We walked and avoided the infamous third rail. We did not speak of it, we did not speak of anything really. We spoke only of beer and vodka, chasing one with the other as we strolled. Sometimes the hole would shake a death rattle and it was then that we knew as group that we were not alone.

We paused a moment. Getting reading. Preparing and orgainzing, bringing to the front of our heads the things we had left alone for so long. We tugged to the immediate what had seemed so removed for such a long tme. We put it there knowing that soon it would be pulled from us. We thought carefully and long about what was happening and we laterally combined it with what we had known would happen. This state continued for a long time, too long maybe.

Trains ran through us, between us, frightening us. We ducked into depressions in the wall, we cowered there. I covered my face and cried a little. I brought all the blood to the vessles in my face to the surface, feeling that they might pop and what then? I held myself as still as I could, knowing that the tension in my cheeks would one day make it impossible for me to smile. So I grinned. We all grinned. We all knew and yet had no idea why we were there. I grinned and knew that the others' grins were also my grin. Our muscles contracting. I cried a little, tears forced themselves out of me smearing the dust and dirt on my face. I hid my face in my hands. We all knew what was coming, we all knew we would be destroyed as we watched it. But it didn't matter. We were in the dark, in a tiny hole, each and every one of us- we were trapped here. What we were going to do would break the hole and let us go. and go we would. Just right now it was so frightening. So terrifying. So immanent.

Finally it came to pass.

First there was a moment of silence. I thought my brain would burst from its cavity. How is this happening, this silence, not even the rats are making noise. They know what is to come. They are saying goodbye with their silence. They are saying I love you in this one moment. They are saying goodbye to all that is still and good and calm and content. They are saying goodbye because soon it will be gone this stillness, gone forever.

Then there was a hiss. It was the hiss of the air going out of a room. It was the hiss of a sigh of misunderstanding. It was the hiss of the beginning of something great and good and wrong.

A spark jumped and I swear its movement made a sound- the sound of being unable to stop what is happening. It jumped into the air and its sound, its signature as it travelled, was so loud I think it split my eardrum in half.

And then we knew it was over. We knew we were done and we began to run. Bottles made their last remarks on our actions as they tumbled after us. This was not part of the organisation, not at all. But our feet were off the ground and our bodies were propelled further into the dark away from the way we had come. We flew. Someone fell on the rail and his body danced a little and I swear to god he was grinning still. I swear to god his ears were my ears and I could hear the humming of the sparks in his bones. I swear to god he screamed I love you as he danced and disapeared. We continued to run and run. But too late. Not too late; too unlike what any of us wanted.


And then the lights and commotion. We were suddenly forced to a stop. The new begining stuck us to the place we were. And oh! Do you know what it is to watch the deaths of sixty people? Yes! You do! You were there, you know the cleaving and rending, the frighteningly soothing sounds. How they move your marrow and hack away at your conviction! Your faith! Forget your faith this here now is your fucking faith!

You watch as they, those explosions and sparks, jolt to such a slippery extent and no one around you speaks- they yell and you cannot be left lonley in this. They yell to match the splitting sound, they yell to assert themselves in this impersonal this dehumanising time. You are not people anymore but animals. We have lit the fuse we are watching it go; yell who you are, yell who you wish you were, yell to the one you love, to the one you want to love but cant (not right now! Not right now! I am in love with men from far away places forgive me, you yell, forgive me they are brilliant and burning! Forgive me I need to know!) Yell to the things you wish you were not: tell them you wish you were not them. Yell above the sound, yell above the tumult. Yell about being someone forgotten and someone too much thought about. HOLLER about: this is right and this is good and this is just just just.

Watch it go because that is all you can do. Watch the metal sever and rupture, watch the metal rend from metal with a shriek of understanding and disempowerment. Watch it and know you are alone in a sea of reverberation. Watch it and feel as it reverberates within you. Watch it and feel your yells becoming silence. Watch it and watch yourself disapear for a little while.