Inverted Gravity and Bitter Coffee

Waking up with the back of your neck wedged against the rusted sheet metal of a bus shelter was already a bad omen for a Tuesday, but discovering that the puddles on the asphalt were flowing upward instead of down proved to be an entirely unnecessary impertinence.

Amalia blinked three times to clear the fog of sleep. It did no good. In front of her worn-out boots, a bubble of dirty water detached itself from a crack in the curb, floated for a second suspended in the air like a glass marble, and shot straight up toward the donkey-belly-colored clouds that crushed the sky of the Canteras neighborhood. A few seconds later, a dry metallic snap echoed against the zinc roof just above her head. And then another. And another still.

The water wasn't falling: it was striking the sheet metal from below, in a stubborn drumming that vibrated right in her dental fillings.

"Fantastic," she muttered to the empty air. "Physics has taken a personal day."

She dragged the palm of her hand hard across her eyes, trying to figure out how the hell she had ended up in that vacant lot next to the peripheral tracks. She was wearing the oversized denim jacket two sizes too big that she had swiped from her brother the previous winter—and which, of course, she had no intention of ever returning—its frayed cuffs smelling of someone else's tobacco and the cold, early-morning dampness.

She shoved her right hand into her pocket looking for her transit pass and her fingers brushed against the cold screen of her phone. The screen had a new crack she didn't remember putting there. In her outbox rested the draft of a message she had no recollection of writing at four in the morning:

"Oliver: if you're going to leave again without a word, at least leave the lobby keys in the mailbox. And give me back the poetry book, you asshole, it had my notes in the margins."

She deleted the text with a flick of her thumb before she had time to be embarrassed.

A girl with a minimum of dignity does not demand books back from a ghost at seven in the morning, nor look up to check whether gravity is still broken. Amalia did both. She saved the panic for after coffee.

She brushed the damp off her knees, adjusted the coarse wool scarf around her neck, and set off toward the entrance of the Canteras station, dodging the rebellious drops rising from the ground like tiny inverted buckshot.

The underground lobby smelled like the forgotten tunnels of the southern network always smelled: of ozone overheated by old brake shoes, of damp concrete that hadn't seen natural light since the seventies, and of the unmistakable reek of vending machine coffee reheated in a waxed paper cup.

One of the fluorescent tube lights on the ceiling flickered with an agonizing hum, casting a yellowish, syncopated light over the turnstiles. In the back, leaning against the control booth with the indolence of someone paid to watch the ceiling, stood Guillén Alvear.

Guillén wore the dark-gray Consortium uniform with a neatness that was borderline unsettling. His shirt collar was so stiff it looked like papier-mâché, his trouser crease was as sharp as a kitchen knife, and in his hand, he held a silver thermos covered in faded stickers of appliance brands.

"You're late, Varela," Guillén said without lifting his gaze from the paper logbook on the counter.

"The street is raining up into the sky, Guillén. Forgive me if I got delayed dodging flying puddles."

"That doesn't excuse failing to clock in. The track logs record this as a routine delay due to atmospheric conditions. Fifteen minutes less on your monthly tally."

"You're a charm. Really. Someday they'll write songs about your bureaucratic generosity."

Guillén took a meticulous sip from his thermos. The liquid was thick, black as pitch, and gave off a sour stench that turned Amalia's stomach.

"Platform two's machine is swallowing fifty-cent coins again," he remarked with exasperating calm. "Doesn't matter how many times the maintenance tech shows up. He kicks the coin slot, curses, and goes off to lunch."

"Fascinating technical report. Can I go through now, or do you need me to file a triplicate request form?"

"Go on through. But watch your step on the southern platform. The switch tracks have been doing weird things to the air since six."

Amalia shoved the iron turnstile with her hip, feeling the dull thud of the worn metal against her thigh.

"Guillén."

"What?"

"Switch to herbal tea. That brew is going to perforate your duodenum."

"It's chicory blended with robusta," he replied, turning a page with disdain. "It would wake the dead."

The Canteras platform was deserted.

The gloom was broken only by the indigo-blue rectangle of the emergency exit sign and the flickering of the fluorescent light above the brown corduroy bench, frayed at the edges by thousands of impatient bottoms. Far off, in the bowels of the tunnel, an invisible train shrieked over the curved rails with a metallic clatter that bounced off the cracked concrete.

Amalia leaned against the steel handrail, feeling the industrial cold seep right through her fingerless gloves.

She stared down at the center track. There was something profoundly desolate about underground stations at that hour: that thick silence that precedes the human tide, when the city hasn't quite finished waking up yet is already tired.

She thought of her home. Of the stovetop moka pot with the loose handle that sputtered on the small burner. Of how Oliver always used to leave half a cup cooling on the counter before disappearing for weeks without offering explanations, as if his presence in the world were merely a courtesy visit and—

A gust of warm, dust-laden air pushed her bangs back.

The train wasn't pulling in yet, but from the opposite tunnel, across the service catwalk crossing over the rails, a solitary silhouette appeared.

He walked with his hands thrust into the pockets of a dark wool coat, dragging his rubber soles with that calculated laziness Amalia would have recognized in the dark in the middle of a bombing raid. He wore a frayed gray wool scarf wrapped twice around his neck.

Oliver.

Her heart did a stupid flip in her chest, one of those jolts that leaves you breathless and instantly makes you feel ridiculous. She looked down at her own boots, checked that her laces were untied, and feigned a sudden, all-consuming fascination with the grime on the floor.

She was not going to look him in the eyes. She was not going to ask him where he'd been for the last three months. And she was certainly not going to tell him she was still waiting.

His footsteps echoed on the polished cement of the platform. He stopped less than a yard away.

Amalia raised her head slowly, her guard up, bracing herself for the half-hearted apology, the sideways smirk, the absurd excuse about trains that wouldn't run or clocks that stopped.

Oliver stared straight at her. There was no tension in his jaw. There was no guilt in his clear eyes. Only a neutral, pristine, and absolutely empty courtesy.

Being forgotten by someone is a polite slap to the face: it leaves no visible mark, but it drops you flat on the floor in one sudden blow.

"Sorry," he said, pulling one hand out of his pocket to point at his dry lips. "Got a light?"