Young Writers Society

“…the dust and seep of the city…”

The ground trembled as trains roared in and out of the station with people nosily stomping across the dirty tiled floor. The place was alive with people shouting over each other, pushing by others and cursing as they watched their train speed away from their grips. The station appeared to be angry with the dust filled air and people screaming within.

Stepping out of the station appeared to do no good. Heavy, black clouds imprisoned the city. Giant pillars from the gas lamps casted great swathes of shadow across the cold concrete road. The naked flames which burned fiercely atop each lamp seemed to be reaching out to the frightful night sky, in a vain attempt to receive mercy from some invisible terror. Dark buildings hunched over the city as if trying to scare the people fleeing the streets from the thumping rain beginning to fall. Raging rivers were created quickly from the black storm.

I called for a taxi. A sleek Mercedes pulled up, making a splash at my feet. I clambered in to the back seat and told the man where to go. No conversation passed between us. I was too busy watching the pulsing city.

The city seemed to be owned by traffic. Cars, trucks and buses squeezed into any available free spot that the streets offered them. The smell of burning tires and used petrol hung in the damp air, and the echoes of screeching tires, loud horns honking and doors slamming haunted the capital. If anything or anyone got in the way of the conveyor belt of gas guzzlers the occupants of the vehicle had no problem yanking down their window and setting you straight.

After an hour of inhaling the toxic fumes and listening to the deafening sounds of the city, I handed the driver a couple of crumpled notes and began to walk. My stomach felt nauseous. But this was only a day trip. In approximately twenty-two hours I would be heading back to that angry station again.

I was alone with the beggars on the street. This city was not designed for pedestrians. The beggars had been on the streets so long that they had become part of the city. The rags they had worn for so long had become moulded to their skin and had turned the same shades of grey as the hunching buildings. Their faces too had been weathered by the rough elements. Their dirty skin was crumpling and falling, just as the buildings were. Their eyes were as cold as the pavement I stomped upon.

I approached the city centre, the heartbeat of any country. With each stride, the grumbling town became louder. Grouching, glaring buildings terrified the streets. They resembled sharks. They loomed over everything else, its prey, and took in victims as they pleased, swallowing them whole into the darkness of their insides. Anyone who did not satisfy their hunger was tossed back out to wander on the lonely streets.

Although I can assume that each building that towered over me was carefully planned out by an architect and executed by a team of skilled men, they did not have a distinctive personality. The skyline was painted by buildings of different shapes and sizes but over the years they had been battered down by the temperamental weather and abused by uncaring occupants. Their upkeep was poor and each building was in dire need of a fresh lick of paint. Graffiti plastered the hidden wounds of these buildings that had blurred into one tired and dirty looking mess.

It was lunch time in the city. Gangs and groups of people rampaged the streets. They claimed to be “starving”. But their neat hair that they had sculpted perfectly this morning, clean, colourful clothes and full, well-kept figures spoke otherwise. Unlike the beggars I had seen a few hours ago, I would say that none of these people that stormed passed me had been hungry for a day in their life. Yet there they were stuffing themselves with more food, to ease their “starvation” for another few hours.

To get a real taste of the city I chose not to join the hordes of bodies in the expensive restaurants that they had squeezed themselves into. Instead I bought my food from a tired looking man who owned a simple hotdog stand on the corner of the street. He seemed thankful for the business. His cold rough hands and raw red face represented the time he spent out here trying to make ends-meat by selling these grease oozing hotdogs.

I was here to visit the city but I cared not for the tourist traps that were offered to me. Gullible tourists visit these places, where everything is over-priced but the quality and service is cheap. Masses of people are herded like sheep into a tight, enclosed cell and like sheep they smile and laugh because everyone else is. London city has me in its clutches at the moment. The masses of gullible tourists claim they come here to see everything; big ben, London tower and London eye to name but a few. They take posed photos of themselves near or beside the land mark with a triumphant smile on their face as if they had built the thing with their own bare hands.

Yet if you ask these tourists about the city, the mood of the place, the way it felt, the way it held itself and its heart beat, they can tell you nothing of it. They don’t really know the city. Rather they caught a glimpse of the make-up that covers the city. I remove the make-up and behold the city for what she truly is.

To do this, I pace the walks of the city. I wander through the allies that have been forgotten by the fast pace buzz of the magnificent city. Broken bottles, rubbish and lost articles of clothing were askew down these depressed lanes. The rise and fall of my foot sent shivers down the cold concrete. On the main streets you become deaf with the loud noises, but down these empty lanes the echoing silence is deafening.

There is rubbish covering the main streets too, but the flashing neon lights, boldly advertising a variety of different things, and pulsing chatter of people replaced the depression that the empty lanes felt. The main streets and forgotten lanes were both abused by the city. While the main streets were abused, they had not been forgotten, making them appear as if they were loved. The buildings could ignore the random attacks of graffiti and rubbish they were subjected by their captors as long as they were occupied.

At dinner time I bought a bag of piping hot chips. The steam off the chips spun, like a ballerina, into the frosty air. The cold air was the only indication of the winter season that had engulfed the city. The buildings stubbornly refused to change their mood despite of the season the change, they were grouchy all year long. There were no trees or leaves left in the city to indicate the passing of time; they had all been kicked out in order to facilitate the expanding kingdom and grumpy buildings. The only way to tell it was winter was by the redness and rawness of your face and hands after a couple of hours in the “open air”

As the evening went on, people retreated home to prepare for the next working day. The streets were again empty, leaving me in isolation once more. Without the disturbances of the hordes of people and all the gas guzzlers, the city could finally breathe. It was as if the city had been holding its breath all day; a beast afraid of scaring away its victims. The closer you got to the heart beat of the city the less the city breathed. Only now the city would breathe for me and the alley cats parading around streets.

At twelve o’clock I retreated to my hotel room. It was a small “cheap and cheerful” hotel down the side of one of the depressing lanes. They complemented each other well. I fell asleep in a small creaky bed to the sound of cars honking, people drunkenly shouting and stumbling and bottles smashing against the dirty, crumbling walls- ransom attacks of abuse.

I woke up to these sounds too. It was seven a.m. I had two hours left to absorb the city. I took the complementary coffee, it was cold, bitter and weak, and went to take in the city for a final time. In the light of day the buildings appeared to be giving the streets a cold shoulder. The rain had changed everything to a different shade of grey and had left behind lethal mini oceans, raging rivers and tear splattered windows.

I walked back to the growling train station, the grumbling city becoming quieter behind me. The beggars on the road had moulded themselves back into the streets that they sat on. I stepped on to the screaming train and didn’t turn back to look at the furious city.