Berlin Underground

He walked along the crumpled streets of a city that frowned a bit too much for his taste.
“Come on,” he yelled into the night. “Scream a bit… or something.”
As he walked, the stardust, either from the far distant sky or from the very near lampposts, sprinkled all around him, coloring his blackness with a layer of discrete sparkle that was only seen by some; perhaps by one in a thousand of the brightly lit windows. The moon squinted at him too, hiding its pale blue eyes when he bothered to raise his head and look back. The streets grew tighter and tighter, now almost seeming like a tiny tunnel that he had to push himself through, causing his clothes to rip slightly, revealing his white, moonlit skin.
There was a little door at the end of the tunnel. He tried knocking, but there was no answer. By the door was a little bottle with a note that said: ‘Drink me!’. The man, with no hesitance coursing through his body, grabbed the bottle by the neck. He stared at the bottle for a while, not with any skepticism, but rather with an anticipation of something; and as he considered it, considered how far this little bottle would take him, he became terrified that it might even take him too far. Then, soothed by the thought of a distant hope, the moon still shining on him through the crevices of the tunnel, he drank the contents of the bottle. He put the bottle back on the table, and the moment he let go of it, it all seemed to grow around him! It was as if the door melted on to the ground, dissolving into a rectangular hole, revealing a flight of stairs into its abyss. Purplish pink smoke started pouring out of it, as if someone was smoking deep in the underground that opened. He stepped down the first step, and he felt the smoke envelop around him, and it brought him deeper, making him traverse the steps faster and faster until there were no more steps, but instead a cavern of deep, white marble. The man put his hand against its walls, feeling the smoothness of it against his palm, but then, when he came in deep enough, the marble changed into a purple velvet, caressing his palms, almost absorbing the very last color from his already pale skin. He felt his energy dwindle away and he thought once more of the bottle by the door, wishing he could feel its glass once more, its cold touch once again to graze his lips. He fell to the knees, but then someone came through the darkness. It was another man, as pale as him, but with a shining red star across his face. He was carrying a guitar across his back. The star man reached out and said:
“You can’t give up by drinking instead.”
“Why not?” said the man. “I’ve done it before, and it helped me then.”
“That was when you did what Caroline said, do you remember?” The star man shone through the dark.
“I won’t do that anymore,” said the man. He grabbed the star man’s hand and was pulled back to his feet.
“That’s good,” said the star man, guiding him through the rest of the tunnels. “We’ve got a good place here. Enough to survive to the surface of it all.”
“How many are you down here?”
“As many as is needed, and soon you’ll be with us too. You’ll see. There ain’t anything like it in the world, to find other’s like you. It’s like finding life on mars, really.”
“Are you sure I can fit down here? I was never really seen by anyone before.”
“I know, but it isn’t about that. It’s about creating something down here, hoping it will break through the surface, that it will leave the underground.”
They walked on, he and the star man. They walked through the tunnels, finally reaching another city that also had lampposts and even a sky with its very own moon.
“I’ve been here before,” said the man.
“Not here,” said the star man, putting his hand against a wall that seemed to go through the entire city, cutting even buildings and cars in half.
“No, you’re right,” said the man. “I don’t recognize this… this wall.” The man put his ear against the white bricks. He heard the sound of crying babies and immediately pulled away. He looked at the star man for consolation, but even he looked sad. “What is this?” he asked, desperately pointing at the wall, trying to somehow jump over it.
“There’s no way, but through it,” said the star man. “It’s way too tall to simply jump over.”
The two men, discouraged by the immenseness of the wall chose to sit by it instead. They sat up against it with their backs, leaning back as firmly as they could. There they sat many years, seeing the city unfurl before them. People chased down each other, running around from lamppost to lamppost in hopes of just one ounce of the dust from the lights. The man looked at his own sleeves, seeing his own stardust dissipating into the ground.
“Look there,” said the star man. He looked tired and starved. “There’s two lovers down there, do you see it?” The man tried looking, but he saw nothing but the infinite expanse of the white wall.
“In don’t see anything.”
The star man looked at him.
“Then perhaps this is where we have to part ways,” he said.
“Perhaps it is. I think I will stay here.”
The star man got up, but before he walked away, he gave his guitar to the man, and then, without saying a word, he continued down the wall, seemingly never disappearing.
The man looked at the guitar that the star man had given him. The words ‘Ziggy’ were scrawled into the very wood of it and they even seemed to resonate with the guitars’ sound as the strings were plucked. The man played and played, not with any specific direction or purpose, but merely to keep the city at bay, pushing the people closer together, but away from him. And, as he played, the very concrete of the wall started trembling, ever so slightly, and then, when he thought he saw a couple of lovers through the mist, the first brick fell through. He pushed back against the wall, playing more fiercely. The first brick was followed by several more, and when the final howls of his sad song cheered on through the eternal darkness, the last brick lay on the ground as well. The man got up and walked through the rubble, and the rubble was rebuilt into something else by the many people around him. They emerged in greater and greater number through the holes and the windows and the subway entrances. They brought the bricks to a new unity, creating a factory through which they sent the empty cans that they had hid in their basements all this time. The cans came through the factory, now filled with soup that could nourish the many, and as he, the hero with the guitar, trudged through the rejoicing crowd, they clapped his shoulders with great gratitude. He grew shy of the sudden attention, but as he walked on, fewer and fewer people thanked him. They were instead moving back to their own lives, settling in behind the many darkened windows.

The man continued on walking his own path, and after many years of searching, he finally found a small, small café, where he decided to stay for a while. He looked around, and, to his great surprise, he saw the star man sitting by a table with a little candle. He was no longer carrying the star across his face. The man joined him at the table, shaking his hand in the name of their acquaintance and friendship.
“What was it like?” asked the star man.
“What?”
“To be a hero to all those people?”
“It was ok, but they quickly forgot.”
“That’s how it is, when you’re a hero just for one day. You’re quickly forgotten.”
“Did you ever find those two lovers? I think I saw them too.”
“I told you they were there,” laughed the star man. “But yeah, I found them. He was her hero and she was his heroine.”
“Heroin?” asked the man.
“Yeah, the way a woman inspires a man. It’s… yeah.”
“I wish I’d had that,” said the man.
The star man looked at him with a look of slight disappointment, but he went no further to make him aware of anything that’d take him away from the sereneness that they’d found in this café. And so, by not interfering, he could witness the man bring out his guitar instead. The man started singing, while the star man took out and lit a cigarette. Airy, purple smoke left it at its tip, filling their tight corner of the café.

“In a small, small café.
We could hear the guitars play.
It was very nice.
Candlelight and Debonnet on ice.”

“That was pretty,” said the star man. “You’ve learned a lot today.”
“I have,” said the man. “I guess it’s been one of those days that I’ve heard people talk about.” He plucked a few more strings on his guitar. “One of those perfect days.”