The crew had lost its sense of humour; and I was beginning to find my sense of purpose. There was some agitation amongst the crew members. Filming had to be briefly halted. Jute was semi-hysterical, and Jim was trying to quieten her down. At first I assumed that they hadn’t quite recovered from the horror of being stuck in the lift. I stood there a while, looking at the mild frenzy of the travellers milling up and down the concourse, dragging their luggage, glancing anxiously up at the clock or up at the giant destination board. I dawdled. The hidden horror beneath journeys yawned in front of me. I was about to go and get myself another beer, while the commotion among the crew settled, when I saw Jim summoning me, waving frantically. I hurried over and learnt, to my surprise, that Jute had received, in her palm, from a completely unknown source, a blood-red piece of paper just like the one I had found on me. She too had received a message. She had read the message, was horrified by it, and knew she couldn’t possibly show it to anyone else. She stood there, surrounded by the entire crew, with the red message in her hand, looking round frantically and suspiciously at everyone, unable to believe that she had been slipped the note without being aware of it.
‘Surely you must know when you got it?’ said Husk impatiently.
‘Yeah, I would,’ said Sam.
‘You said you found it in your hand. So think back. When was your palm last empty? Was it in the lift, was it just now? It would help if you tried to remember.’
But Jute wouldn’t try; she just stared at us all as if she had suddenly found herself in a nightmare.
‘What does the note say?’ asked Propr.
‘We don’t know,’ replied Jim. ‘She won’t say.’
‘This has happened before, hasn’t it? It happened to you, Lao, didn’t it? What did your note say? You never told us.’
‘It didn’t say anything that’s anyone’s business but my own. Everyone should attend to their own nightmares and not go sniffing around in other people’s. And if you ain’t got no nightmares, acquire some. I’m off to get a drink.’
And so saying, I was gone. I went to the nearest bar, ordered, and drank. Mistletoe came and joined me. I got her an orange juice. We were silent.
The bustle of arrivals and departures was everywhere. Odd to see such whirling despair. The air fairly quivered. For every traveller there was a whole train of other people, invisible people, that they had brought with them. They were dragging their dead, their ghosts, their monsters, their etiolated shadows along with them, along with their luggage. I didn’t know that the world was so densely populated. Each person seemed to have five others with them. That’s what made the crowding so edgy. That’s why journeys, at their beginnings, are fringed with such tensions. Some people leave their ghosts, their dead, behind on the platform. Others carry them all the way. A few acquire new ghosts on their journeys, and on their way back home. I looked and saw that our crew fairly bristled with ghosts. We had brought more shadow-beings with us than anyone else in the station, apart from the tramps and a few big shots travelling first class. Maybe that is what failure is, carrying more ghosts and shadow-beings around than one’s psyche can manage. I could not tell how many I had with me, but judging by the freakish state of my mind, I must be fairly mounting with them.