Season 01 - Episode 23

‘a waterproof flame’

The light in the corridor is dim, the smell incredible. Ak has pressed himself back into a corner to wait and watch. Looking back and forth, all he sees are people marching into and out of the distance. Wall to grimy wall, floor almost to low ceiling, slow moving bodies, all pressed in together.

It is a familiar sight to him now, yet fills him still with awe. The bodies come endlessly, each moving with purpose. Ak imagines a bath tub with a tap at each end. He pictures two opposing flows somehow retaining their currents, pushing through and past each other.

He is waiting for the woman he met earlier to return. After his failed attempt at packing, he spent a fortune on ultra-lightweight gear. This included a paper thin, yet indestructible sleeping bag. A waterproof, flame retardant, temperature regulating work of art.

A few nights in doorways however revealed that despite everything else it resists, the miracle sleeping bag is not stain proof. Ak mentioned this to a friendly young woman he met who kindly offered to take the bag to be cleaned.

Now he is waiting for her to bring it back.

She has been several hours.

After several more, Ak finally realises she's not coming back.

He resists the burning shame rising to his face and the plunging fear in his gut. He reminds himself that he is here seeking experience and chalks this up to the same. Rejoining the stinking, fleshy flow, he moves along the corridor, trying to breathe through his mouth.

Every so often, his agent's voice whispers from his memory. The dire warnings and naysay pleadings pick at his resolve. When the voice comes he counters it by imagining his triumphant return. A genuine journey with genuine stories. Noble scars and integrity.

At first he had worn a large hood for fear of recognition but quickly discovered that nobody cared. This made life easier but pricked his pride. Here he is just another body, one more faceless form.

The crowds sweep him along until their pace begins to slow. He cranes his neck and gets up on his toes and sees a bottleneck coming ahead. The corridor meets a flat, dead end, through which an angular hole has been punched. The open doorway frames another corridor beyond, but throttles the crowd at its threshold.

Ak finds waiting painfully boring. He doesn't know how they all stand it. He looks around and spots a small door on the right. He pushes and shoves to reach it. The corridor beyond is even worse lit, narrower and ceilinged yet lower. Further along though, it turns to the left.

A longer but quieter route, towards the same destination. An obvious choice yet this other corridor is empty. Ak pities the masses behind him. Heads down and trudging, they don't think or plan, just follow each other into hardship. If only they tried, they could find better ways, but they don't, so they don't, not like him.

Ak steps into the empty gloom, stooping slightly and turning left at the end. The way ahead is unlit but in the distance stands an oblong of light, flickering as bodies move past it. This long, straight dark will leapfrog the snarled up doorway completely. Ak smiles to himself and feels happy once more, until hands from the darkness grab him.

He is being beaten and stripped and doesn't know what to do but then comes a sound that ends everything. A great screeching roar that deafens and blinds. All is clanging and screaming and chaos and terror.

Now he is falling and falling and falling, limbs flailing desperate but hopeless. His mind stalls and chokes and the words of his agent return. As he tumbles on down he knows nothing except that he is about to die. In his final moments he finds there is only one thought he can think.

He is a fool.

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