Underland: A Deep Time Journey

urn:iso:std:iso:639:ed-3:eng

169–170

text excerpt

A flooded tunnel leads towards a chamber.  Orange light on the water, washing and rocking although the water itself is still.  Cries come from through the doorway, and there is the sound of music: the Jam’s ‘Going Underground’, growing in volume, booming down the tunnel.  I smile in recognition at the music, bridge onto ledges on either side of the flooded tunnel, and reach the doorway.  It opens into a high-sided room, the roof twenty feet or more above us.  The space above makes my head feel as if it is helium-filled, floating. A big tricolour flag is painted high on one of the walls.  And there are people standing up to greet us: embraces for Lina, shakes of the hand for me and Jay, welcoming smiles for us all.

We have found our way to a different kind of Wunderkammer here, one filled with music and hospitality.  There is a table spread with food and drink: fruit, baguettes, wheels of Brie and Camembert, bottles of spirits, cans of beer.  A boxy CD player sits in the middle of the table, wired up to two small speakers.

The Jam changes to Bowie’s ‘Underground’.

‘Ça, c’est le cataboum!’ says one of the strangers, pointing at the music box, nodding in time to the beat.

White fairy-lights are strung around the room.  It is all deeply surreal – as if we have stumbled into a postmodern mead hall, far underground.  A plastic glass of vodka is pressed into my hand and I knock it back gratefully.  Burn in the belly, and the time in the train-rift instantly softening around its edges.  My glass is refilled with brown rum from a label-less bottle.  I catch myself grinning.  I feel grateful for this place, for the juxtapositions of the catacombs, tilting from terror to warmth in the twist of a tunnel.

[…]

Bowie changes to ‘Underground’ by Ben Folds Five.  Everyone cheers.

We eat more, drink more, talk more.  Hours pass.  I mostly listen, relaxing after the day’s exertions, pinching myself at the weird subcultures of this underland, reflecting on the bizarre cultural recyclings that it calls out.

excerpt from 'Underland: A Deep Time Journey' pp. 169–170 (356 words)

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1660909707049