Anthology Volume One

IN MY DARKNESS, I FOUND A LIGHT

Thursday. Holding onto the rail, I leaned my head against it as the train thundered away from the station, the shudders under my feet making my body sway.

Only one more day to go after today until the weekend and forty-eight hours of blessed seclusion and solitude.

Dinner tonight then? Pizza or frozen lasagne? Decisions, decisions. Then after? Read or watch a movie? Maybe even get some porn on cable and find the energy to jerk off when it's all I can do to carry on breathing the air of this miserable world.

Moving closer to the side of the train, I flinched as someone brushed my shoulder, dismayed at the sheer number of bodies packing the carriage. It wasn't like every morning wasn't the same. Sure, if I got my lazy ass out of bed on time and was first on the platform, I could get a seat, take out my book and read. Otherwise, like most every day, I was condemned to be just another sardine on the morning commute. I hated it. I hated those perfect strangers jostling and knocking my body, the only human touch I ever got from day to day. I hated the smell of the unwashed, those who'd eaten garlic the night before and those who'd doused themselves in sickly perfume. Truth be told, I hated people in general, which explained why I worked in a little cubicle all day for a pittance, talking to the bastards on the phone, not having to see them face to face, keeping myself to myself, friendless and watching the clock for eight hours non-stop.

The doors opened as the train made its first stop, and I stepped aside a little. The new arrivals would expect me to move down the train and into the melee, but as usual, I battled with them as I did every morning. No way would I give up my precious few inches of personal space by the door to move along the carriage and into the morass.

I was looking away as a man in a long, dark overcoat got on, a broad shoulder brushing mine. As the train set off with a lurch, he stumbled a little and grabbed at the rail I held, inadvertently touching my hand.

"Sorry," he said quickly.

I kept my eyes averted, inwardly seething at being touched even though I murmured some platitude in reply. As usual, I was hostile to people on the inside and let them get away with murder on the outside. No balls, that had always been my trouble.

As the train picked up speed, I became aware of the stranger's shoulder pressed against mine and his scent started to make my nostrils twitch. Something expensive, something I'd sniffed in a department store but couldn't afford to buy. My eyes drifted to his left hand on the rail. Long, delicate fingers, short neat nails. No wedding ring. I glanced down. He wore dark trousers and black, highly polished shoes on small feet, briefcase held by his side.

I liked people watching even though I hated them all, and I wanted to look at this man's face now. I could just about see him out of the corner of my eye, and his face was turned away. Boldly, I lifted my head.

I saw him in profile. Shiny, black hair fell over his eyes, a startling contrast to his milk white skin, the most flawless skin I'd ever seen in my life. His nose was strong, too big if you were feeling unkind, but I wasn't, and his lips were pink and full. He stared straight ahead through the doors and I could see one eye, the lashes blinking over it thick and graceful like a doe's. The eye itself was a pale, startling green. It looked almost unreal, like a gemstone or a marble.

I realised I was staring. Christ on a bike, he was beautiful. He turned his head suddenly, and our gazes met. I saw the whole of his face and both of those stunning eyes. I looked away instantly, lowering my head, my cheeks flaming with a scorching blush. Sure, I liked to admire beauty on my morning commute, but I was usually more discreet. I didn't often get caught with my tongue hanging out by the object of my attention.

My heart beat a little too fast, my palm slippery on the rail, his hand only a few inches below it. How come I had never seen this man before? God, I would have noticed, wouldn't I? Or maybe my studied shell has blinded me even to beauty. The train swayed and his briefcase hit my legs. Usually this would have me flying into a frenzy, and I would think of all the ways I wanted to kill the inconsiderate person and their offending luggage, but today I welcomed it like he had stroked me with his hand.

I bit my lip, eyes on the floor, gaze sliding sideways to his shoes once again. Get a grip, I told myself fiercely as my prick started to stiffen, but I couldn't because I was imagining how those pale eyes might darken with desire and what he looked like with those heavy winter clothes stripped off.

We were coming up to the next station but not slowing down. I was on the direct train, the one which missed some of the little shitty stations on the way and got me to my dreaded job even quicker than I would like. I always watched the people standing on the platform of these stops and shuddered a little at how fast the train would plough through these stations and how much turbulence it must create. I never understood why the train didn't slow a little, for safety's sake, even though it wasn't stopping, and I always wondered why I gave a shit when I hated people. Maybe it was because I had once stood on one of these platforms when a train had thundered past without stopping and it had scared me badly. I'd had all sorts of ideas in my head about what it would be like to step out as it hurtled through the station and how one's death would be, without doubt, immediate. At how the other people on the platform would be sprayed with brains and blood and it would probably be all over the station roof. I had wondered if anyone would care.

I stood at the front of the first carriage, and I could see the people on the platform clearly as we approached. They kept well back, but one moved with intent to the front of the group, directly to the edge. It was like watching it unfold in slow motion. I didn't even have time to realise what was happening as the man--and it was a man, I could see his suit and his short, blond hair--didn't stop at the edge as I expected him to but merely carried on, not hesitating for one moment, but stepping out into oblivion.

I heard the green-eyed stranger next to me give a gasp of absolute horror as he, too, realised what was happening before his eyes.

The man's body looked like the mannequins they use in the movies as it bounced off the front of the train, a huge splattering of crimson raining right against the door in front of us. The man beside me flinched back, his shoulder knocking into me hard so I stumbled against the back of the seat next to me.

The train lurched, metal screeched against metal as the brakes were applied, and we came to an agonisingly slow stop, people clutching in desperation for handholds to avoid being thrown about like marionettes.

Only when we came to a complete stop did I hear the true commotion in the carriage. Women screamed and cried, and men shouted in disbelief. I turned my gaze to my beautiful travelling companion. He had his eyes closed and head bowed, hand still clinging to the rail. A soft moan of horror escaped his lips, and a light sheen of sweat covered his face as though he was seconds away from puking. I stared at him, feeling emotion and empathy towards another human being for the first time in a long, long while.

As I opened my mouth to offer some platitude, the door to the carriage slid open and he almost fell out onto the ground below. We had come to a stop some distance out of the station, and it was a long way down. Railway employees helped people down, and sirens blared in the distance. As I climbed carefully down, gripping some guy's hand with thanks, my gaze sought the stranger who weaved haphazardly towards the bushes at the side of the tracks.

He fell to his knees, dropping his briefcase as he vomited. Even doing one of the most humiliating things you can ever have an audience for, he still retained a certain sort of grace. He didn't do it with that noisy drama some people did, but with a quiet, almost exhausted kind of resignation, his hands on the ground, bent over, the vomit pale and liquid and sparse, like nothing much had gone into his stomach in a while.

Maybe he was as tired as I was, because I could imagine myself puking with the same lack of energy. Maybe he was as lost as I was, adrift on the sea of life with no destination in sight. I sternly told my romantic heart not to get the better of me. Seeing an attractive man and feeling compulsively drawn to him did not make him my soulmate, even though, empty and lost as I am, I still pitifully hope for that with every pair of eyes I meet. Even as far down the line as I am, lonely, isolated and withdrawn, I still dream of that soulmate. I still dream of curling myself up into a warm body at the end of the day and crying my troubles out to someone who understands. Someone who wouldn't fuck me once and never call me again.

I studied the stranger with a pang of sympathy in my poor, criminally underused heart. He wasn't the only one doing this. There was a line of people all along the tracks puking. I never understand this human reaction. The only time I puke is when I've drank too much or there's something physically wrong with me. I never feel the urge to puke at things I've seen, and the suicide's broken body hadn't driven me to it either. Did that make me a callous bastard? Well, I am anyway, I already know that and yet, as much as the sight of someone puking is abhorrent to me, I had no intention of walking away from the stranger.

I approached behind him as he sat back on his heels, shuddering a little and catching his breath, his face covered with sweat and tears running from his eyes. I reached for a handkerchief from my pocket, the one with the initials RG that my mother had bought me last Christmas. I held it over his shoulder silently.

He took it without a word and held it to his mouth a moment, eyes closed, taking some deep breaths. I put my rucksack down on the ground, opened it up and took out a bottle of water, and handed that to him too. He said, "Thank you," his voice deep and hoarse. Uncapping it, he took a mouthful and then spat it out into the bushes, repeating this twice before swallowing some.

He held the bottle a moment, head bowed, the other hand wiping the sweat and tears from his face. I stepped closer to him, not distracted by the calls from cops who had just arrived on the scene and were rounding up the passengers. I put my hand hesitantly on his shoulder, feeling how soft the wool of his overcoat was and murmured, "Are you okay?"

He nodded, teeth biting his lower lip, startlingly white against the pink flesh. "Thank you," he said again, and he held the bottle out to me.

"Keep it," I said, because no way was I going to drink from it now that his puke mouth had been against it, even if he was the most divine creature I'd ever seen in my life. I handed him a stick of gum. He took it, thanking me yet again.

I stepped back as he stood up and retrieved his briefcase, turning around so our eyes met for the second time. Those peridot eyes had the same effect on me as they had on the train. They turned my bones to water, and I felt like I was falling into the sweetest of abysses with no safety harness anchoring me to reality.