Freud
In the north of Oxford is an abandoned building. Erected in the 1800s in the Greek revival style, it served as the church of the town of Jericho, a comfortable locality with the atmosphere of a village bordering onto the great expanse of Port Meadows, where horses grazed in the frost-bitten fields, where the ruins of the abbey rose like an eerie premonition at the edge of the grassland. On misty mornings it haunted the plain from a veil of clouds, the ancient bricks gradually been crumbling since its dissolution in the 1500s.
The church, void of worshippers at the advent of the 21st Century, was turned into an elegant cafe bar where students would often organise distinguished parties that lasted until 2 AM in the morning. But for the past two years, the building had been shut on the pretext of renovations. Yet for months there was no scaffolding, not a construction worker in sight, and Freud remained empty and at odd with its bustling surroundings - the great fortress of the Oxford University Press opposite it, the modern building beside it, looking more and more like a tomb to a Helenistic goddess. Too far out from Central Oxford to blend in with the collective of collegiate architecture, alien in the middle of Jericho when it could have fit in perfectly next to the Queen's College, or in the great courtyards of Christchurch. No one entered or left Freud, no car drove up and stopped along the road. Students turned to the numerous other cafe's and bars that catered to the city's intellectual elite.
If you turn down a street from Cornmarket, you will come to the iron gate of the Oxford Union - the playground of the House of Commons, many an aspiring politicians's paradise. The so-called 'bastion of free speech' has been for years the epicentre of scandals - the silencing of committee members who spoke up about something they did not agree with, the suspicious manner in which every time an Arab or Muslim president was elected, there was always some interrogation regarding the purity of their character. In this century, it had been increasingly embroiled in controversy, leaving many disillusioned regarding its self-proclaimed sanctity.
There are rooms in the Union where none can enter, not even members. There is a basement where there are numerous pipes and cogs, dials regulatin the heat and water of the building. And at the end of the basement is a door, the key to which was lost years before.
Every city has an underground, and Oxford is the mother of the medieval undergrounds of Europe. City layered over city, it has streams paved over, crypts kept closed, tunnels no one dare enter.
In the corner of Freud, at exactly 11PM on Saturday, a trapdoor swung open. There was no one in the Union at 1 AM on Sunday. At least, there was not meant to be. But someone was when a light flickered on on the forbidden third floor that hosted the President's office. Half an hour later, two figures emerged from the building, carrying a hefty duffel bag between them. They emerged onto the street, unscrewed a pothole, and disappeared inside with a clang.
No one saw them. At least, no one had meant to. But a girl who had been morosely wandering the alleyways of the city of dreaming spires, lost in thought, homesick, fatigued, had seen. She had seen the trail of sticky red that the duffel back had left behind. She had touched it. Then pressed her clean hand to her mouth before she let out a scream. And when the British rain battered the paved roads, scrubbing them clean, and soaking her shivering form, she almost thought she was dreaming and let it slide.
Almost.
