The wheels of the train revolved beneath them in perpetually accelerating cycles. They roared and rumbled through a vast labyrinth-like matrix of interconnected underground tunnels, forged long ago in years of wartime. The soft whirring hum of the internal air conditioning unit was absorbed and washed away, utterly drowned, by the terrible screeching of the mechanical brakes, that groaned wearily from their labour.
The subterranean passageways were coated with black soot and dust and dense layers of solidified carbon monoxide gas; like a coal mine deep below the surface of the earth, upon which pretty wild flowers bloom in bursts of purple and orange and the rich green grass rises in pinnacles of towering plant life, to catch the glean of a ray of golden sunshine.
The passengers were coated in dreary brown, grey and black attire; woeful high street brands, stained and festering with thick layers of urban pollution. Their faces were full of gloom and resting upon them one perceived sullen facial expressions of weariness and resignation. The kind of functioning depression that only life in an industrial concrete blockade of artificiality can create and bore onto one’s sensitive visage.
Their chattering conversations were interrupted by an artificial voice blaring over the public intercom in a harsh cacophonous array of dissonant, robotic vocal tones – which reminded one of a bad horror movie, seen in drips and drabs on daytime television, one lonesome, boredom-filled day of dejection – it’s post-apocalyptic voice announcing their immanent arrival at the next stop; declaring the dull sights and lifeless attractions to be found therein. Attempting to advertise them with enthusiasm and inspire a sense of adventurousness within the recipients, yet succeeding only in exacerbating their ever-gnawing sense of discontent with the declining nature of reality and modernity.
The glaring bright white lights shone down from the carriage ceiling and mercilessly illuminated every time-worn wrinkle and blemish, every scar and physical deformity, every mark of sorrow and regret scorched onto the faces of the passengers; displaying for all to plainly see that which they seldom seek to confess, that which they never appreciate being revealed, that which they endeavour to conceal and mourn the identification of: their insurmountable resentment and incurable dissatisfaction concerning their post-modern, urban-industrial lives and their stagnant positions in the world; as time rolls ever onward and opportunities for exuberance become ever more scarce, as their youthful optimism steadily dwindles with no apparent remedy and is gradually replaced by cold-hearted cynicism, by spirit-breaking pessimism, by soul-hardening scepticism and eventually by mind-numbing ultra-realism; as moments of joy and innocence are smashed by the cold hard hammer blows of false maturity and devolving modernity and all the hopefulness and idealism of childhood is left to rot, unnurtured and unfed, in the dark corners of their psyche which they dare not venture to in moments of silent, pensive self-reflection or melancholic remembrance.
Short Story by Stamos Mardou