Subterranean | Suburbia
208 words
He is a mole, an earthworm, a grubby traveller of dirt; his eyes so accustomed to darkness that they have blinded him to reality.
She is a songbird that lives in the yellow warmth of sun and in the glow of company. She savours every breath. She finds beauty in the laughter of other men. She cries with happiness in the frozen winters, for the pain of cold reminds her she is alive.
His lumpy duffle coat hides his hi-vis uniform; image is important to her. He trudges the avenues of picket fences, the slats of blinding white, before he rides the infinite slats of gunmetal-grey tracks beneath his underground train, beneath the pretence of all this.
She escapes to the real: her smile, her endurance, oh the way that she has coped with such tragedy. She escapes to the fake: the hollow embrace of other men.
She longs to hold her earthworm husband.
He escapes to the real: to the hissing of closing doors. To robotic announcers. To the whoosh of tunnel-winds. He escapes to the fake: to the lights that blur past his window of darkness, as if he is flying the vacuum of deep space.
He longs to fly with his songbird wife.
London torn. Night and day. Sinners and angels. Debut novel by Mark A. King, available now
Metropolitan Dreams 