Where dark thoughts live
When I was a kid my mum used to tell me “Keep away from the trench at the end of the platform of subways, that’s where the dark thoughts live.“. Since then, the trench has always fascinated me, but also scared me a tad. It’s been a place where mystical things can happen, where if you went into the trench it would devour the person, send it to a place dark and full of thoughts. Maybe something with long, slender arms. So many, that counting them would prove a failure. I believe she told me, to keep me away from the ditch, so I wouldn’t fall in. But without knowing, the warning has left an imprint on me and whenever I stand at the end of a platform, I look down, look for rats or mice and wonder where they come from and where they will go. Do they know the place where dark thoughts live?
One day, in my young adult life, I woke up in the middle of the night, having wandered to the middle of a deserted street. Only some streetlights were working and gave off a warm but flickering light on the slippery asphalt. I often sleepwalk, but I never woke up outside of my house. Never with my day clothes, a jacket and shoes on. There weren’t any lights in any houses to be seen, no other inhabitants to be met on the street. It felt calm, but lonely at the same time. It may have been around 3 o’clock. It’s was only a few days until fall, but the nighttime air still wasn’t chilly.
I was just standing there, in the middle of a circle of light from a flickering street lantern, and suddenly my memory of what my mother had told me, crept up. A desire to find out, if there could be more than what can be seen. If there could be a place where dark thoughts live. To be honest, I’ve often thought about going there. To the subway, the nearest station. At night. Was my subconsciousness telling me to go there? I wanted to know if there were any truth behind what my mother told me and my decision made me move. More than once, I’ve used the subway to get into the city. Just not in the last 4 or 5 months, especially not as often as I used to when I didn’t have my own car. Where did I drive with my mother? To my grandma? Did we go to zoos? Did we visit doctors? I don’t remember, I couldn’t even have been 7 back then. It seems so far away and unreal, so long ago. One of those memories I have from that time is of my mother telling me, about the dark thoughts, that live in the trench of subway stations.
When I arrived at the entrance of the train station, it was still dark around me. The street lights were only working sparely and it may have looked like I was devoured by shadows if a person had watched me descending the stairs. Why were there only so few lights working in this subway? Shouldn’t the government keep them working? What was I paying taxes for? Without any strong light source, the main thing that attracted my attention underground was a slight “tap...“, “tap....“, “tap...“, of water, it almost sounded as if someone was waiting and unconsciously tapping with his foot. There were less working lights at the platform and the ditch couldn’t even be seen from more than 5 meters away. Only as a strip of darkness. But even the slight smell of urine didn’t turn me around.
Her story of the trench may have also been a way of my mom telling me, that many people found their end on these rails. I’ve never seriously thought about suicide and I don’t think it has ever been my thing. It was more the risk that was interesting, the risk of stepping on a track, the feeling of being in danger, even though no trains drive at that time of the night. I was only curious then, curious about what I would find, how it would affect me. What kind of dark thoughts could even live in a subway station? What are dark thoughts? Where do they come from? Subway stations have a mysterious feeling to them. Especially aged ones with these old lights They are, in a certain sense somehow romantic. The old design, the lights and the atmosphere, sometimes even the people. I took my phone with me and switched on the torch.
There was a soft thud, when I landed on the floor, next to the rails. The jump down may not have looked graceful, but I felt good about my legs not giving away. The song “Dream a little Dream with me” popped up in my head and I sang, first humming then singing louder and more alluring:
“Stars shining bright above you, night breezes seem to whisper I love you?...“.
The rails went into a tunnel on both sides and the darkness in the ditch was present all around the circle of light of the torch. There was the sound of the wind as if it were saying something. The draft, respectively high pressure and negative pressure of the air, which try to balance each other and create wind in tunnels. Wind and breezes make sounds, spooky, longing, dreamlike. My hand cramped, maybe in panic. It accidentally clicked on the flashlight button, which switched it off and also made me drop the phone. I was in utter darkness. The air still moved around me, touching my hair and my face, while I hummed:
“Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you, sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you....“.
A normal feeling would have been panic, to make loud sounds, maybe scream for help, to search for the phone, who knows. But instead, I only had a feeling of being at peace. With myself, my actions, the past and life. It suggested to me, that I should instead of searching for my phone just go. Walk into the darkness, the place I’ve feared and thought about since childhood. That I should go into the steady quiet of the dark. The first step was the hardest, but from then on, it was easy.
