ELEGY ON THE
UNDERGROUND
Flash fiction by Lindy Newns
Illustration by Bistra MassevaIt was my home but now someone else sleeps in his bed. She keeps cats. She does
his ironing. He wouldn’t let me keep a cat. He said he was allergic.
I am allergic to the Northern Line. At night, there’s sometimes sick on the floor.
It’s always on the Northern Line that there’s a person on the track. The train stops
in the hot tunnels. The lights go dim. We wait.
Last week, when my train was gridlocked near King's Cross, I saw a gigantic
cat prowl past the window. It shone like an opal, fur showering sparks in the
darkness. I am seeing things now, I thought, and tried to see where it had gone,
but the train moved on.
There was a poem above the window in my carriage yesterday morning on my
way to work, “Christ if my love were in my arms, and I in my bed again.”
The cat knows how I feel. That poem tells me so. It lives in an old, abandoned
station. The walls are lined with jewels, and light streams through. It is solitary
but not lonely. I envy it. I wonder what it would be like to touch its electric fur.
This is my plan. I will wait until late at night and call to him. The cat will come
to the tunnel’s mouth. His fur will ripple with light; he will turn his head and
open his mouth and breathe me in. He will carry me home.