SUMMARY: In which Karkat Vantas contemplates how much he owes to the subway that cuts through the greatly urbanized city of Skaia. If it makes no sense, it's because it doesn't.
There's always been something about the subway. There's always been something about the graffitied walls and grimy seats; the florescent lights and the ice-cold rails; the rickety shaking of the floor as the vehicle scrapes over its pre-assigned tracks. I don't mind the scent of smelly socks and cigarettes, nor the trash-littered aisleways. I don't mind the creepy old ladies wearing too much perfume, or the twelve-year olds sneaking their hands into people's pockets, or even the occasional druggie hiding in a far corner of the blue plastic seats. I don't mind the long trip from my home on the edge of the city to my college downtown. Hell, I don't even mind how early I have to get up to catch it, because the subway has always meant something more than the free trip, more than the free-access to the rest of the city. To me, the subway has always meant escape.
I grew up stone-cold poor, and was homeless for more than half the time, so I moved around a lot, but my family always migrated back to the subway. We always came back to the filthy stations and even filthier platforms. We always came back to the cement tunnels, back to the stone bridges and dirty tiled walkways, because that was all we ever knew. I grew up with the sound of the subway flying by as my lullaby, the ever-present rumble of people's voices lulling me to sleep every night.
My mother used to say everything starts and ends at the subway, and everyone in Skaia crossed paths with the subway at least once a day. I don't doubt that for a fucking second, and will quite happily tell you I "cross paths" with the subway many more times than I can count. After all, I owe my life to it.
A big metal machine is a funny thing to owe your life to, and people laugh at me when I say it's what got me to college. Truthfully, it did more than that. If I hadn't stood up from my home under cardboard boxes and walked onto the subway four years ago, I wouldn't be where I am today. As cheesy as that sounds, it's all true. If I hadn't had the subway, I'd be withering away in a coffin of cement too many people have marked as their own. I'd be just a homeless bum you pass on the streets instead of the youngest student to graduate from Skaia International Academy.
I wouldn't have a laptop in the bag strapped over my shoulder right now, I wouldn't have a wallet tucked into my pocket, I wouldn't be riding this subway to meet my best friend and boyfriend. Hell, I wouldn't be considering I want to be more than that.
If I hadn't stepped onto that subway, with its cigarette smoke and pick pocketing children, with its old lady perfume and graffitied walls, I wouldn't be stepping off of it today with a velvet box in my pocket and a trot in my walk.
I was given new life by the subway, and this is just the beginning of another.
A/N: The fuck did I just write? I don't even know... And do I like how it came out? Absafuckinglutely not. I wanted to do so much more with this than I did, and it was supposed to be more, I dunno, poetic than it came out, and maybe I'll end up rewriting it in the future.
Sorry I still haven't updated my multi-chaps. As I previously stated somewhere within the throes of my writing, I have been practically bedridden for over a week, and have so much homework and classwork to catch up on, it actually might be a while before I get around to the updates.
No, this is not part of "Of Freckles and Silver", obviously. New version of SolKat I might want to expand on in the future. I don't know, but I rather like the title Graffiti Heart, and maybe (after Charcoal and Scars, Runners and Des Ailes Dorées) I'll write a multi-chap going into more detail with this story. I just don't know :/
Okays, I'm going to go now.
Ciao for now! ^-^
~Webs