From: Forever Knight TV show stories [FKFIC-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU] on behalf of Nancy E. Kaminski [nancykam@MEDIAONE.NET] Sent: Saturday, May 26, 2001 9:37 PM To: FKFIC-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU Subject: The Path (01/01) NOTE: Toronto's underground city is called the PATH (does that stand for something? I don't know, and haven't been able to find out.) When I attended a conference in Toronto I stayed in the Sheraton on Queen Street. I had some free time and was exploring the large hotel, and stumbled into the PATH. I walked for an hour and got comprehensively lost -- I finally had to surface and ask a bemused businessman on the street where I was (about 10 blocks from the hotel!). At that moment I thought, "What a great thing for vampires! They could go out during the day!" I finally followed through on that thought with this story. I'd like to thank my beta readers, Jean Graham, Cindy Ingram, and Kathy Whelton. As always they offered excellent criticism, for which I am eternally grateful. Permission is given to archive this story on fkfanfic.com and the FTP site. Comments of any sort are always welcome! ===================== The Path By Nancy Kaminski (c) May 2001 ===================== I have a secret. No, not that one -- this is a much smaller one. Of course, Lacroix knows it -- there's not much I've ever been able to keep from him. It's strange that he's never said anything, never even made a stinging observation on his radio show. Once in a while, though, I see the knowing look, hear the unspoken jibe. I don't understand why he allows me this small liberty. I just know that he does, and I'm grateful, even though it galls me to say so. Perhaps it amuses him. Natalie once asked me, why Toronto? Why settle in this city, of all the cities in the world? I've always let her think it's because Janette came here and I followed. *That* she understands, although I can tell she doesn't like it. But even though Janette and I have been lovers and friends since the beginning, she's not the reason. We've been separated before without complaint, sometimes for decades at a time. We know we will be together again, somewhere, sometime. No, it's not her. The real reason is... I guess you could say it's a matter of architecture. You see, there is an underground city in Toronto. Ten kilometers of it, in fact, walkways lined with shops, restaurants, and businesses, all underneath the streets and towering downtown buildings. This city beneath the city is my freedom -- because I can walk there by day. You don't understand, I can see it in your eyes. To you the city is always the same. Like all cosmopolitan cities, it never slows down. It is always crowded, noisy, and rushed. But there is a difference. A city by day is not the same as a city by night. Things are faster, more purposeful and intense. There is a sort of energy in the air, as if the machinery of commerce emits some kind of invisible force that motivates everyone and everything it touches. The city by night, on the other hand, bends its energies towards pleasure. There is a feeling of hedonism sought and savored. It is the vampire's world, the world in which I am condemned to live, and from which I long to escape, but cannot -- except for my brief respites in the underground city. Every other month or so I check into one of the big downtown hotels. They know me there by now; consider me one of their regulars, an out-of-town businessman visiting clients. I do nothing to disabuse them of that notion. In any case, they're happy to comply with my minor eccentricities, such as always checking in at three or four in the morning and always paying with cash. I let them assume I routinely take red-eye flights. They don't need to know that I come from my night-shift job not three miles away. I'm old enough now not to need to sleep the day away. A few hours of rest in the impersonal room until the day is well-begun suffices. When I arise, I dress for the part I am to play -- a conservative business suit, a white shirt, a sober tie. Sometimes I carry a briefcase, although it doesn't contain files or a day runner. Sometimes I put in a newspaper, sometimes a paperback book, but always there's the flask, a reminder of what I am. I hate it, but it's necessary. If I'm not careful the underground city can be overwhelming. It's late morning when I descend to the lowest level of the hotel. I can hear the muted babble of thousands of voices, the tread of thousands of feet. With a feeling of anticipation I turn the corner and I'm there. It's not quite lunchtime, so the crowds are not so thick yet. The traffic is people going from one building to the next, avoiding the weather outside or hurrying to appointments. I slide into the flow, choosing a destination at random, sometimes simply following a knot of people as they expertly traverse the confusing maze of polished stone corridors. I eavesdrop shamelessly on their conversations to hear snatches of office gossip, shoptalk, or complaints. At these times I feel curiously detached, like an anthropologist studying a strange civilization -- the Daytime People. I was one of them once, long ago, and although we were vastly different then, we were also the same. Threading these crowds reminds me of the market days of my youth, when everyone came to town to meet and trade. That feeling hasn't changed. And oh, God, how I miss it. It is an ache that never dies. Invariably that little voice in the back of my mind starts asking those irritating questions -- why are you doing this? Why do you force yourself so near to something you cannot have? It is an exquisite form of self-torture, easily avoided. I hear Lacroix in that voice, his smooth, oh-so-reasonable tones overlaid on my own. All the more reason to ignore it, to scrape my nerves raw with daylight, to immerse myself in yearning. It makes me feel alive. It makes me *feel*. As lunchtime approaches, the crowds thicken and the smells from the numerous restaurants and food stands intensify, at once nauseating and intoxicating. I purchase a cup of tea and find a bench to sit on. (Yes, I can drink tea. Don't tell Natalie. That would spoil our game.) I sip it and watch the people go by. I sometimes play guessing games -- what does that young woman in the avant-garde clothes do? Where is that middle-aged man going, and why does he look so worried? I make up plausible stories. There, that man is a stockbroker; he wears a navy pinstriped suit and carries a copy of the Financial Times. That one works for an advertising agency, and his latest campaign is in the portfolio held securely under his arm. This group of young women, bright as birds, all work in the same office and are spending their lunch hour window-shopping in the Bay instead of eating. I wonder what they see when they look at me? Do they play the same guessing games? Not everyone is in a hurry in the underground city; some stroll the corridors for the pleasure of watching the opposite sex. I've drawn my share of admiring glances, that momentary eye contact that is an unspoken invitation. I smile and drop my eyes to the newspaper or book I'm holding. I don't want to get involved with them, that's for my public life and my job; I just want to be there, among them, a part of them but separate. That is enough, and it allows me to maintain my fiction of belonging. If I spoke to anyone, made a personal contact, it would shatter the illusion. The daytime hours fly past. I always take this opportunity to make small purchases -- even those of my kind need mundane things like shoelaces and toiletries. These transactions are so ordinary, so utterly normal, that they are a quiet joy. But all the while I can feel the weight of the sun on the streets above, and can tell when it starts to drop behind the buildings. The shadows slip and lengthen as tangibly as a chill upon my skin, unseen but felt, as subtle as a snake. The faces I see now look tired, and the clothes rumpled, as the trek to the train, the subway, or the parking garage begins. Invariably I am drawn to Union Station to witness the rush towards home. Home. I'm certain I've romanticized that concept. I know the wretched lives that criminals live, and I see their shattered victims, but I have little contact with what is ordinary or normal, save what I see among my colleagues -- and I am careful not to get too involved with them, not even my partner. I don't care. I have too much reality in my existence; this is my release into fantasy -- the fantasy that I'm one of them, that I could simply climb a staircase and go outside, that I could get on a train and go home to a life like theirs. But I can't. Instead I stand in the shadows, the westering sun slanting golden through the station's high windows, and let the echoing footsteps of the crowd and the metallic thunder of the departing trains engulf my senses. It is brutally symbolic, this ebb and flow of humanity passing me by. Like a rock in the middle of a torrent, I stay the same while they rush past me. No, not quite. The passing water will eventually erode even the hardest boulder, and so humanity has worn at my immortal shell. They have shaped me by their passage, forced me to change by their very being. It is painful and difficult, but I welcome it. It is my dearest hope that one day I will be worn to my very core, that the humanity that I believe still resides somewhere deep within me will be exposed to a benevolent sun. That day is not today, though, nor any time soon. The crowds thin until there are just a few straggling commuters walking with tired tread through the echoing station. A janitor casts a curious glance at me, wondering why I remain. It is time to leave. It is twilight now, and safe for me to go outside. Pushing through one of the heavy, brass-handled doors, I see that there are still traces of light in the deep blue sky reflecting off the highest tips of the glass-sided buildings. I am back in my dark world. The fantasy is over, my little game completed. And while you might think this is depressing and horribly self- destructive, you would be wrong. I feel curiously light and free. This day of parole gives me the strength to go back into my prison and carry on. Perhaps a few more atoms of my adamantine shell have been worn away, and I am that much closer to my goal. I smile at the pale urban moon rising above the buildings and walk to my hotel. It is time to check out and go back to my own place, my own world. It has been a good day. FINIS ~~~~~~ ============================================ Comments, complaints, and vampires in business suits may be sent to: nancykam@mediaone.net ============================================