ThE bOatMaN

The drops fall. The tap lets them run in a cue, one by one in a neat order, at regular intervals. The drops plunge calmly. With an echo of life, they scream the end of it. Bloody crooners, the sound makes me claustrophobic. Keen to join their mother, somewhere down the sewers of the city, the drops join to form a satellite and rush towards the drains.
I stood in front of the train the other night. The cursed machine changed tracks. The fish plates ringed with the train wheels, they were sniggering at me. The lines, smooth and steel, grinned with the passing light, its not departure time yet. I had never missed a train in my life.
The rail lines cross the muck river just behind the swanky new mall that came up last month. Years ago, the bridge was a favourite death spot. Many had jumped to their deaths from the culvert. The river bed, hence so mossy. The lines and the river there, knew the taste of blood. But now, the authorities have installed a spot light focussing that spot. The line curses it and vanishes in the shadows behind. The sewers cry, hungry, thin, dying.
That patch looks familiar. It was from my bathroom tap. Slow, steady pace. Tired and determined, cursed with a life, much longer than it could live, blessed with such speed, that it would always keep dreaming to reach home someday. The shadows from the rail bridge touch the sewers inappropriately. Dodging the cement pillars, the sewer gives off a smell of raw flesh, burnt crops, half dead bodies and rotting dreams. Voyeur pigeons, gurgle below the bridge. Mothered by the city, fathered by the dreams, the bastard sewer flows on in search of home.
Fireworks bludgeoned the skies. Smoke moistened, cold smog descended on the sewer like a sooty veil. My corpse bride smiles through, the moon screams dull. I don my suit, tie my cape, wear my mask. I am the boatman. I work alone.