t h e   l a n e

I caught the sudden look of some dead master/ Whom I had known, forgotten, half recalled/ Both one and many; in the brown baked features/ The eyes of a familiar compound ghost/ Both intimate and unidentifiable... And so, compliant to the common wind,/ Too strange to each other for misunderstanding,/ In concord at this intersection time/ Of meeting nowhere, no before and after,/ We trod the pavement in a dead patrol
T S Eliot, Little Gidding, Four Quartets

The whole goddamn lane was in darkness, like a dark squiggly line scratched hurriedly across a dark city. It’s not like I had an option, so in I went, towards the darkness at the other end. It might have been charming in the light: I knew that there was century-old woodwork and green glass and thin bricks all around me, but now it was unpleasant in a way that only a dark narrow lane can be.

We had been walking into each other for some time now, two dark blotches from either end, and for some reason, quite contrary to the ways of the city; we greeted one and other when we met mid-way, as if in solidarity in a situation forced upon us.

“Can’t see a thing,” I said, and we laughed and stood still and didn’t want to part.

“Where I come from”, he said, “this would be called pleasant” and he stretched out his arms and encompassed me and the lane and the darkness and the city. Night clouds had begun to reflect far-away yellow saturated streetlight, and they were pale pink in the smog and could have been beautiful.

Where did he come from? The anonymity of the city and darkness had collectively wiped out any remnants of identification. He just was, and that was all that mattered.

I hesitated, and he went on: “You look lonely”

It was a strange thing to say in the light, and impossible in the dark. But something about that dark lane brought one closer to the truth and I found myself half-muttering, almost to myself, “why…yes” and it was such a relief that I felt light-headed.

He drew closer in that narrow lane and there was less darkness in-between. “Don’t be embarrassed by loneliness,” he said, “it’s only a place to start…”

As he trailed off I looked deep into his eyes and saw the hollowness of a commuter. And I knew then that he was from nowhere and everywhere and spoke the truth.

And while I put myself together he turned and walked out of that lane.

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