Spacing has a number of articles from our public transit issue that we saved to publish exclusively on Spacing.ca. Last week we posted Robin Rix’s look at the inspiring transit system of Mumbai, India, and this week we are happy to bring you a short fiction story called “23 Bay, 23 Bay, 23 Bay…” by local author and DIY publishing guru Jim Munroe. The story follows two inquisitive young men who are trying to sneak into Toronto’s abandoned Lower Bay subway station. A little excerpt below:
All I was in for, originally, was the Lost Subway Station. That I wanted to see. It appealed to me as a kind of urban Atlantis, disappearing beneath our consciousness and leaving a dizzying swirl of rumour and mystery in its wake. Well, that’s a little romantic, but how many hard headed rationalists would be tromping through a grimy tunnel in the wee hours of the morning?
“All I hope is that they don’t turn off the lights after it closes,” Kevin grumbled. He was mad we had waited till the trains stopped. I had hunkered down in the alcove beside the tracks and refused to move until the 1:10am train had passed. It didn’t make sense to risk getting smushed since it was just a case of waiting for a half an hour.
Not that any of this made sense, but I had the tendency to temper my irrational acts with careful logic. It bugged the hell out of Kevin.
Read the full story in the Spacing Archives.
illustration by Julia Breckenreid
