Onepennyprofiles’s Weblog

       The world underground was nothing like the one above. Down in the depths there were no city grids or right angles, no trees or theaters, no signs other than the ones that read “High Voltage,” “Authorized Personnel Only,” or “Danger.” It was all darkness; a deep intestinal darkness. Jack squinted against the thick sooty darkness but it obscured any easy reading of depth and distance. He guessed the tunnels were about five and a half feet high by four feet wide and at just over six feet tall he had to crane his neck in order to navigate. The walls were at once damp and slimy and in short order his neck began to singe with pain and several times he had to plunk his body down on a pipe or a valve and massage his neck.

       Touch took over. It ruled his world and he felt eyeballs growing on his fingertips. The fine grain of the concrete became a map, a country unto itself. Sometimes it was rough and he would cry out when it cut his hands; at other times it was smooth and he would glide his hands over it thinking of beach rocks and sliver wear, but whenever he came upon a patch of some slimy sewage material he yanked his hand away in disgust. Bit by bit he began to discern the differences in heat and cold. Minute differences in degrees were classified. He could feel the blue heat of a water pipe and tell it was slightly different from other ones.  

       He walked like a zombie. Slow, with one hand on the walls and the other swiping the darkness. He tried to keep a mental note of various distinctive features. Directions repeated and repeated and he chanted to himself things like, “turned left at the pipe with the green duct tape then slid under a low red pipe, turned right, then went straight. A quick left at the red water pressure valve and straight ahead for thirty meters.” But the list became too long and after an hour of lurching through the dark, he became utterly confused and abandoned this tactic. The tunnel system was not to be pinned down.

       Thirst and hunger grew into his stomach. In his mind the drip (drip, drip) had sprung into an oasis and he dragged himself towards it with the half stoned slump of a man crushed by the elements. His throat burned. At times, water (and freedom) seemed just around the corner and at other times it leapt away.

        He was soaked in the city’s refuse. Several times he had slipped and fell in the sluice way’s ebony waters. He thought about drinking from it, but each time he lowered himself to drink the sewer’s smell overcame him and he wretched violently.

       Drip. Drip. Drip.

[Note to the Rubble Reader: if you like this story and need to find out more click on the story's title below or you can go to the right hand side of this page where you will see a "tag cloud."  Simply select the title you want to read. Better yet, you can find the complete story under the "Stories" option at the top of the right hand side of the page. Thanks--One Penny]

You shall have a place outside the camp and you shall go out to it; and you shall have a stick with your weapons; and when you sit down outside, you shall dig a hole with it, and turn back and cover up your excrement. 

                                                                                                  – Deuteronomy 23: 12

       When Jack Rankin finally navigated himself out of a cavern of nightmares, he awoke lying on a concrete nook some forty-five feet below the oldest city in North America. Everything was dark, damp, and disorienting. From the inside pocket of his black Company jacket he dug out his Zippo and snapped it on, a flange of light dented the darkness. He could just make out a network of tunnels knifing off into the darkness while at his feet a sluiceway sent a river of condoms, puke, and urine swirling off into the city’s underbelly. Pheilm Rankin was at a crossroads of sludge and shit. 

       He rose up and tried to get his bearings. Through the flickering lantern of his Zippo he could see a labyrinth of irregular cavities, niches, and recesses pockmarking the walls. He stood up on the ledge and pressed his ear to the wall. A faint hum filtered down from the immortal city above and he thought he could hear the muffled rumble of cars rifling down the street, someone (who he pictured in a grey business suit) yelled for a taxi, a horn faded off on the ribbon of Doppler’s Law and although he normally detested this collision of sound, it was comforting to him now. But the feeling didn’t last long. New, alien sounds crept out of the darkness. A moan swept through the corridors. Pipes rattled. Things creaked. 

       Something drip, drip, dripped. 

       And he followed it. Reckless and confident at first he cursed loudly as he knocked his head off of a pipe or smashed his knee on a steel-wheeled gauge. But he carried on believing that the drip must be coming from a manhole, his way to freedom. 

       “I’m almost there,” he reassured himself as the sound of the dripping pipe increased. But, invariably, when he thought that the drip was just around the corner, it would leap off far away into the darkness and he would start out again trying to find it. 

       His thirst burned, but he was unconcerned. All he had to do was find the drip and the manhole. It all seemed easy enough. But at this point any true understanding of his situation was far, far off. How could he have guessed that the darkness and the rats would become his friends and allies, the sewage his sustenance?

       Drip. Drip. Drip.

[Note to the Rubble Reader: if you like this story and need to find out more click on the story's title below or you can go to the right hand side of this page where you will see a "tag cloud."  Simply select the title you want to read. Better yet, you can find the complete story under the "Stories" option at the top of the right hand side of the page. Thanks--One Penny]