Oil
By delusionsofgrandeur
New York is a city that likes its hotdogs greasy and its coffee greasier. It's the kind of place that breathes in noxious fumes and exhales toxic waste. New York is where millions of nameless, faceless people rush along, content in their pathetic, meaningless lives all the while oblivious to the deadly thrum that beats beneath the pulse of the writhing mass of humanity.
It's a good thing that not everyone exists in this existential hypnotism, because that vibration below the sidewalks isn't always the filthy pride of the Transit authority. Sometimes it's something else.
Like today for instance, The blue line is shut down for maintenance between 34th and 42nd streets. It's an inconvenience, sure, but these things happen. Society is a machine that requires oiling now and then. So you have to walk four blocks over to catch the orange, no biggie, except that you still hear that hum. It sounds like the blue is running, but we know better.
***
A voice, like water, fluid, gurgling wafts up through the ventilation, floating towards the streets of New York City, "I don't see what the problem is."
"The problem?!" This one familiar, a rich tenor laced with city honed arrogance, it's the voice of a Joker. "The problem is that you're callin' us every other week!"
The liquid voice protests, "They're always snooping! They spill my garbage! All hours I tell you!"
It's a transit tunnel, a hundred or so yards down the track from the now closed platform. Blanketed in darkness, shadowy, oppressive.
Another voice this time, rough like volcanic rock, with the potential to crack and shear into a deadly razor sharp glass edge, "We offered you alternatives. You insisted on staying here."
The gurgling is indignant,
"Alternatives? HA! Central park is no alternative! 54th Street Pier
is no alternative!"
A soulless voice cuts into the conversation, echoing off the brick saying nothing of circumstance until it interrupts itself and fades away.
"Turn the TV off Cecil," the Knife says, beginning to gleam.
Silence invades and fills everything, but the steady pulse of the city.
The smiling tenor finally breaks it, joking aside and flat with deduction, "You ate them didn't you? We talked about this, you can't go around eating children!"
"They keep coming around! It's my job to scare shits like them!" he bubbles.
There's a flash of chrome as the Knife sighs. "You're not the Boogeyman anymore, Cecil."
The Smile begins to fade, hands in the pockets of his shadow, "Cough them up Cecil."
He shifts, beginning to boil, insistent, "Someone needs to teach them a lesson!"
"Not you. Now cough them up," the earth begins to rumble.
Shadows are at the ready now, any causal, predetermined assumptions gone, taking both comfort in the dark, and momentarily worried as a brief silence threatens to stretch itself into something else.The placid viscous water voice transforms now, a chemical reaction, into something volatile. "I can't."
The sunspots gleam in the darkness, poised for action, hovering reminders of the past and the future all at once.
And all hell breaks loose.
***
Later, the younger of the two rubs his palms on the thighs of his pants, hands itching, numb. He's reminded of something that he doesn't take the time to remember. Instead he reflects on the smothering heat of the underground, insulated by millions of cubic tons of concrete.
The Knife has reverted to his usual gruff, inorganic nature and mentions getting a cup of coffee as they both climb the stairs out of the station, weaving between the sea of suits and shoes into the daylight.