Kleinzeit

Morrows Cruel Mock

Morning in the Underground. Footsteps and faces thick and clamorous without speech, overlapped like fish scales, echoing in the corridors, dismantling the emptiness left standing by the night upon the platforms. The motionless stairways stirred, escalated. From the tunnels lights shot forward and the black cried out, woke Redbeard in STAFF ONLY.

Redbeard performed his morning toilet, had breakfast, packed up, came out of STAFF ONLY. He dropped sheets of yellow paper here and there, took a train to the next station, dropped more paper. He took another train, went on leaving yellow paper in tube stations well into the morning. From the last station on his route he worked his way back over the same ground looking for the sheets he had dropped.

He picked up the first one he found. It was clean on both sides.

I don’t have to write anything at all, he said to the paper. Or I might write an Elizabethan love lyric. To Phyllis, maybe.

Morrows cruel mock, said the paper.

I told you I was tired of that, said Redbeard.

Bad luck, said the paper. Morrows cruel mock.

I don’t want to, said Redbeard.

Let’s get this straight, said the paper. It isn’t what you want. It’s what I want. Right?

Right, said Redbeard.

Right, said the paper. Morrows cruel mock. That’s all for now. I’ll be in touch with you later.