Short Story #1

It's edges are still sharp and just one corner shows damage to its handcrafted geometry but there is no mistaking that the lock has suffered. The metal plate is scratched and mechanism is no longer true.

The box stood centred between their tight silence while all around was noise.

Electrical frenzied high humming from the tracks,  a low contralto hiss of opening doors. Shuffling small steps as more people squeezed in. Packed.  A babies rattle clatters to the floor and a screech rouses the tall woman from her upright sleep, she folds to recover it from oblivious feet. Baby grabs at it and puts it back between its unformed teeth. The mother smiles a thanks and turns her eyes upwards to the carriage skies.

A man mouths the poetry stuck to the arc of the tubular wall, his backpack fallen, worn one shouldered, unsecured . Bored now, he studies shoes. Rain splashed patent peeping from damp turned up hems. Unabashed biker boots bucked tight. Concrete pounding converse, brazen red.  And brogues. Why do the cities hippies dress like trees? Organic fine cotton denims in fair trade tannin browns. Musty sage green jackets over crumpled 8am linen shirts.

The box slides and judders on the moulded plastic behind the seat, and then back again, and back again. The abrupt clack of a metronome or the tocking of a clock. Outside, the flash of station tiles, Highgate, Archway, Kentish Town.

Camden is the stretch out stop. Friday to Sunday Camden is the party, the bar, the dealers street, the funk of wild ideas, blissed out trips and smoke. Moochers and meanderers, pickpocket wins and self made temporary kings and those that walk a precarious line.

 Darya stretches her ballerina back and stands.

"Proper seat? " 

It is the first time they have looked at each other since leaving Maria's swank home on the avenue. 

There was no thaw. 

Both reach for the box and both retreat. A shared stab of guilt tilted them together,  Darya lifts it, long fingers clasp it close. "come on " 

Nadia steps in next to her, strides matched as they walk through the carriage to find adjacent vacant seats.

Darya wears her thick auburn hair in a single plait; pulled so tight at the crown and temples that it erases that small sagging in the flesh of her cheeks and creeping of disappointment around her eyes.

This is not the reason she chooses to wear it like this. She enjoys the weight of it. That it causes an upward tilt to her chin  As she walks the length of the carriage it pulses against her spine, a gentle knock at each vertebra to keep her tall, to remind her that she is real.

"Der'mo"

 "Robho bitch"

Darya slams the box into Nadias chest.

Sneered.

"Now you have it. No more crap breakings in. No more playing spy's and  dances of espionage.  It is messed up. You fucked it Nadia. Tooled gold scratched ,It is worth nothing now."

"Why did you hide it in all stupid places. The stupidest places. Stupid"

"He would have given it to me"

"it wasn't yours to take and it wasn't his to give"

"It wasn't yours to fuck up."

"Too loud Darya. Too Prima Donna too loud"

The woman with the baby turns to look at them then turns back to look away.

"Why didn't you take it?"

Nadia's meet her sisters eyes. Pupils wide and  iced.

" I don't think I really wanted it. I didn't.  I was simply curious to see what secrets it keeps. "

" tttcch, there is nothing there but air, a last breath. And 'simply curious' does not break a lock"

" Listen Swan" Nadia shakes the box hard.

"Nothing. The sound of the Neva. A whisper of St Petersburg shame."

"Harder, listen hard"

Nadia's diamond nose ring sends fractals of light across the floor and land on the cheek of the woman sitting opposite. Her fingers reach to catch the light,  Their smiles reciprocal, soft.

The carriage corners too fast and it's people grab clumsily at coats and metal and  speak in stumbling muttered curses as coffee slurps and phones drop to the floor. Nadia holds the box tight beneath her long red leather coat.

Darya drops her shoulders and sits a little forward as the titanium plate and screws at the base  of her back settle after the jar. There is rarely any pain but a gargoylian shift out of alignment.

Without abandoning her play with the woman opposite Nadia places her warm palm in the small of her Darya's back, just as a presence.

The train slows as it approaches Mornington Crescent and the passengers anchor,  resolved not to move. The doors slide open and the clamour begins again.

A guy, tall, a flash of red hair with headphones and open book squeezes into the space between Nadia and the smile.

An interminable scream from the brakes: a chaotic tumbling of bags and people slammed together. The box still clasped in her hand as it breaks her rib. The lights power down out and  white noise layered with panic reverberates through out the underground tunnels.