💾 Archived View for tranarchy.fish › ~autumn › break › crimes.gmi captured on 2023-09-08 at 16:28:31. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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<- Back to break: a hypertext exercise in hyperempathy
she wipes her palm on her jeans and offers down a damp hand to haul you over the fence, the blood in your knuckles temporarily squeezed out to account for the rain slicking her grip. your shins buzz when you drop on the other side. she slinks down next to you and starts inspecting her environment like a fox in a neighbor's garden.
"i've been wanting to get in here for months, it's got a kind of mythology for me, i'm obsessed. this train line, they made it in the 1890s or something to stitch various parts of the city together. it goes under parks, over rivers, hidden beneath roads, nowadays a lot of the bridges just look like arches to nowhere. there's a derelict station under the botanic gardens, down that way" gesturing down the track into the [overgrown abyss](abyss.html).
"from above you can see the platforms through the ventilation shafts, they're barely hidden by the bushes. *ohh i looove that graffiti... cactus dog...* but anyway it's one of those things where it probably won't still be around when we're older. cos it'll get too dangerous and decrepit and collapse or just get demolished with new build basements or something. so i wanted to get in before the council gets mad that too many people are having sex in here-" the flick of a lighter, reflected in her irises "-or someone gets lost in the [twists of the tunnels](tunnels.html)."
she catches your expression in the teeth of her smile, licking it off her lower lip. "that's why we brought the lamp. and it's not like a maze or anything, you just... pick a path, and eventually we'll come out somewhere. the tunnels have a [hundred years of history](history.html) in them, half of which is 'unintended', so, it'll probably be interesting whichever way we end up going. like, i think there were a bunch of illegal raves in here in the 90s and shit like that, and graffiti for even longer. but yeah, like..."
her pacing stops, making close eye contact with a spider sheltering in its web below an awkward overhang. "i guess the only limitation is that we can't pick more than one path. some ppl hate making choices, idk if you're like that, but, i think it's a good thing to have that limitation. we could obviously come back here some other time, and go explore a different bit, and say fuck it to philosophy. but if we do that we're avoiding the consequences of making decisions. which is like, kind of ironic since the decision to leave no mysteries is itself irreversible, after all that effort!". she grins at you, slightly manic, clearly proud of herself.
"so i want you to pick whichever direction your heart desires, and we'll follow it. sound good?"