There’s so many secret places down here.

Secret, or forgotten, or unremembered.

Like I want to be.

Like Loss wants to be.

This one is like a secret I keep from myself. It’s a forgotten spur off the Thames foot tunnel, built in 1830. The tunnel itself is used for electrical conduits and stuff now, but no-one knows about the spur. It’s 15 meters long and coffin thin. I think it must have been locked away soon after the tunnel was built. The door is blocked off by piping and ventilation ducts, steam spitting out like the place is alive. The door will only open 10 cm, so anyone much bigger than me would have no chance.

This is where I come when I want to cry.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t cry. All my tears evaporated in rage and pain and a heart broken into a thousand three years ago, but this is where I come when I want to cry.

I can’t cry, but here, well I can let the space cry for me.

Once I’m in and the door is closed it’s like I imagine a womb must be. I can hear the water from the river, the noise it makes like a caress. There’s an unstoppable low hum from the machines beyond the door that is almost subsonic, and a muffled swishing from whatever the current is pushing or pulling beyond the walls.

This is where I let the blizzard in my head turn into gentle snowfall.

There’s a narrow shelf half way up where I’ve got some candles, and I bring my photograph of Suzanne and me and my daughter and I just curl round it and don’t cry. I look at the flickering images lit by the candles, making them seem in motion and I feel my body melt a little. I stare at my daughter and don’t cry and don’t cry until I can’t see the picture outside anymore. Only inside. Inside my heart. Inside my head. Pushing the blizzard away.

Filling me with a gentle nothing, like the softest wind through my soul.

And then I sleep.