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Nom de Chien

It could have been the sandwich or perhaps the dainty black leather coin purse with the silver snaplock lying on the table. Certainly something here was Not Right. Turning over the cover of the faded log book, flipping a little then opening it to a page marked with a pen, scanning down rows and rows of dates and times scrawled in blue ink. Today's date was there on the very last row. Check in time - 7pm. Checkout time - blank. Nom de gardien, nom de chien. Name of guard, name of dog. Name Of Dog. We ran.

pic: qx

pic: qx

Juggling our cameras, fumbling lenses back into backpacks, slipping and sliding over the smooth concrete platform we bailed past 2 trains sleeping quietly alongside the platform. Somewhere amongst the rooms to our right a toilet flushed and we heard water surging through the pipes. We'd dodged the guard by virtue of a visit to the pissoir. We bailed past the offices, the training rooms and then off the abandoned platform, over the fence and out into the tunnels. We were safer in the tunnels, the guards don't like it in there.

pic: snpl

The area around NDC isn't used so much, it's a little dead spot in the system. The trains pass frequently on the other lines though, their lights charging towards you then swerving away at the last minute on route to other destination. Each one brings the fear that it might be the one train to leap the tracks into the dead tunnel and bear down upon you; swaying angrily side to side in an attempt to collect anyone not flattened properly against the wall, or simple lounging in the middle of the tunnel sitting on the tracks. None ever have but the nagging feeling it still there. The air is stiller around NDC, without the constant push pull vacuum you get in the shorter raccords. Even the graffiti is mostly old, faded and coated with a thick layer of black dust. Clearly even the writers don't bother passing by.

pic: qx

These little dead spots in the system bring true variety to exploring the metro, places you can't see passing by and looking out the window. Little pockets of temporal stasis, islands of quiet found only by those who walk le chemin de fer ( start kung fu theme )