Back in the Labyrinth
London
Jed
The walls are wet with perspiration. I’m lost now. And there is no thread to lead me. I’m back in the labyrinth. But now, something has changed. Everything is perfectly silent. I can hear the wind whisper in the corridors. There’s a muffled noise which starts to rise, as I see on the wall a white cross. Then another. I follow the white crosses. They seem to draw a pattern I can’t understand. I can see them by packs of thirty or thirty-one. I follow the walls, and hear the sound going higher and higher. It becomes metallic. It is as loud as a human voice now, and shouts higher and higher. I can’t understand what it is saying. It is just like a foreign language, shrill and metallic. As I follow the crosses on the wall, the fifth pack of white crosses draws my attention. In the middle of it is a red cross. The sound is now so high it nearly forbids me to breathe; I can feel my organism contract as if it wants to throw up. A small number appears on the wall, as if a wound had opened. Written on the wall is a red number 12.
Then, I lift my eyes to the rocky ceiling.
I wake up in a sudden. I have this sentence in my head, going round and round.
Find the Saint.
I get up and go downstairs to have my breakfast. Granny is already frying me some eggs, as if she had heard me waking up. In a few minutes I have eggs, sausages and beans in my plate.
Find the Saint.
What is my dream trying to tell myself? I don’t understand.
“So, did you find about the Enigma during the night?”, Granny asks.
“I had a strange dream.”
I lift an eye to the calendar, and an idea soars in my mind.
“Do you know what saint to we worship on May 12th?”, I ask to Granny.
“Let me think,” she answers, “Oh, yes: Achilles.”
I don’t understand. The only thing I can think about is he had a lover, Patroclus.
Everyone has people he lives for, then.
“By the way, on May 12th, there’s also Epiphane, Nereus and Pancras.”
How come she knows all that, I ask to myself. Anyway, English Grannies are full of resources.
St Pancras! That was the solution.
But then, who will I be waiting for this afternoon at 6.34 in St Pancras?
May Achilles lead the way, then.
18.34
Someone should be there, in the hallway. Someone should know I might be waiting in the hall. But who? The train has arrived. This guy or girl should be walking through custom at this very moment. I can’t do anything but stare at my watch. And think.
Who will it be?
I can feel my heart beat faster as I move more and more uncomfortable waiting.
My pulse is rising, as a mass of people I don’t know come from the gates. I try to recognise someone I know between all these faces.
Then a silhouette catches my glance.
I know this hair, I know this body, I know those eyes.
I know this mouth who is smiling at me.
My face gets redder as my pulse runs wild.
I stop thinking, and smile back.