Can You See Me

Chapter 2 || De Ja Vu

River went home to an empty flat that evening, like every evening. And it was every evening that he cracked open a CD case, slipped an album into the player, and slumped into his deep brown sofa without bothering to change his clothes. It was most evenings that he would pop a bottle of Heineken and nurse it until the songs were over. And, it was few evenings that we would spritz his Japanese peace lily with some water before returning to his place on the couch. He liked the space he called home. He enjoyed the dim lamps bleeding orange into the ebony that tumbled in from the night sky. He didn't often see his flat in light of the morn or midday. Even when the summer rays greeted the streets in the early hours of the morning River would be gone and roaming London streets before his shift. When they said farewell in the late hours of the summer evening, it would be only when fully sheathed in darkness would he slot his key into his apartment. The weekends would be the same, he would go to cafes and public spaces to occupy his time before meandering back home.

His apartment was his favourite solitude. Somewhere for his thoughts to pass through and the occasional beer to be drank. River believed that solitude was best in the half dark. The warm and the cool intertwined in his living room. Being outside was a different seclusion. He liked to observe the rats in the race. He often walked to work and preferred to watch the people chattering down the street and thinking about what life strangers were living, rather than sitting in a stuffy car waiting for the light to turn green.

This morning was different. River would miss the smile he shared with woman who pushed her baby to the mother's group down the road but since his tire punctured the previous evening and he was still finding time to call his garage, he opted for the tube. He would usually brace the elements but since the message he found a week ago, he was more on edge than he'd care to admit. And it was absolutely shitting it down.

The clicking and clacking of the rails soon replaced the sound of clattering rain. Not soon enough for River however, as he still got soaked in the 5 minute speed walk to the station. He stood on the platform shaking the hair through his fingers in an attempt to stop the strands from dripping on the walk way. It was only a few moments until metal on metal chattered down the tunnel just like the people waiting to get on. Finally pulling into the stop, the train kicked up a mighty draft of the putrid smell of hot coffee mingled with the twang of metal and urine.

Even in the depths of London, the grey from above seemed to infect down below. Red was washed like faded clothes. White seemed flecked and yellowed. Even the people inside the carriage seemed bleak and lackluster despite the glaring acrid light. People poured out onto the platform and allowed a stream where River pushed through and miraculously found a seat. The train pulled away after a few more moments and the station whizzed out of view. In its replacement, the blackness and the odd orange tinted light in the tunnel. Stops went by, people shifted in and out, but River mainly kept his gaze in front of him, not truly looking.

That changed once she sat down though. Something about her caught him, reeled him in from the waters of his misted view. Maybe it was the muffled guitar that rang from her strings of headphones, or maybe the way she slunk into the carriage and seeped onto the seat opposite him.

She looked strange. Almost incongruent to where she was, but still finding a way to blend into the cracks of the environment. It was as if you could only see her if you truly intended to, not a figure to be seen in the peripheral.

Her fair skin was marked by scarlet splinters that seemed to bleed around the apple of her cheeks, the tip of her nose, and her eyelids too. It wasn't blushed, or rouged. It was like the ceramic of her skin fractured from the bite of the cold, leaving the red to pierce the ghoulish paleness of her face. Beneath her thin, upturned eyebrows, her eyes sat heavy in her skull, the weight of them leaving dark sunken shadows beneath. She turned to the side, the stranglers coming into the carriage drawing her attention away from her stocking covered knees. From the side, River could see the divot in the slightly crooked arch of her nose, alongside her half tucked hair behind her ear, the rest of which was left jaggedly framing her head alongside the messy fringe that sat higher than her brow.