A man in a corridor

They say that Arcturus Taupin never was sure why he decided to become a squatter and occupy that house, that abandoned house in the 33º district.

The owners died or migrated, no one knows, the human existence it's so fragile, it comes and goes.

The owners were something that no one knew... and besides, the house was a bit isolated from the rest of the neighborhood, weirdly built under a bridge where the urban train passed by:

every now and then the noise was unbearable, and every passing train made the walls, doors and window panes tremble like ashtrays in a Mötley Crüe show.

At the entrance of the house there was a receptacle for holy water, like the Catholic churches:

the floor signalled a strangely descending curve as one was penetrating into the entrails of the living room; there were two sofas, all covered in dust, and a brown table where slick cockroaches danced at the lightless and vibrating atmosphere of the hall.

It was like a sick dancefloor... notwithstanding, from 1:00 AM to 5:00 AM the silence was profound and absolute, because those were the hours when the trains were dormant under the rain.

Trains sleeping under the rain.

At 5:00 PM the darkness into the house was thick, and as he penetrated into the entrails of that manor walking like a blind man, Arcturus Taupin felt he walked on wood

he used his lighter to see:

he was in the kitchen, there was an horizontal wooden door in the floor.

There was an opened pack of red roman candles on the shelf; Arcturus Taupin took one, and lit it: his eyes were fixed on the horizontal door.
Holding the candle with his left hand, Taupin stretched his right arm, and touched a green metallic ring which was nailed to the door... with care... almost caressing it, Arcturus Taupin laid a fingertip on the surface of the ring, it was irregular and cold.

Taupin made the fingertip dance in circles on the surface of the ring, as if it was an areola
his face acquired the hardened rictus of the serial killer.

Arcturus Taupin grasped the ring with determination and pulled it upwards, the door got opened heavily, making a strange noise.

Taupin opened his eyes, like Saint Peter in the marine blizzard: the burnished surface of a long descending stairway appeared under the dubitative light.

A force... an overpowering compulsion, like the compulsion of the demented, compelled Arcturus Taupin to descend into that place.... that place:

one foot.... step.... another foot.... step.

As soon as he started treading on that staircase, Taupin, the strange man who usurped other people's houses, he heard, or he thought he heard a distant noise, an extremely distant and airy noise, like a whisper.

During a long and icy moment Taupin, Arcturus, he stayed petrified, thinking if he should keep descending or leave that place immediately... deep inside he knew he couldn't leave:

three steps.... another foot.... four....

A kind of painting started being noticed by his eyes in the descent, a painting on the wall, hanged excessively high, an oil on canvas.

As Arcturus Taupin descended more and more into that subterranean chamber, he could see the portrait better: it was -almost- a duplicate of "A Lady in a Fur Wrap", painting attributed to El Greco.

It showed a young woman whose obscure stare contained a mixture of coldness and fear.

Taupin stopped his march on the long stairway and observed the corner of those eyes... something uncommon those eyes had, something too.... too....

When the eye contact with the inert luminousness of the portrait became too uncomfortable, Taupin re-started his march downwards, deeper, always deeper...

"This calaboose never ends" Taupin thought, while his feet took him into the lungs of that unfathomable place, which was one and only room of miles under the earth.

After 30 minutes of march through that place, Taupin deemed he was already out of the neighborhood where the house was located.
Lghting a new candle in the thin air of the huge subterranean vestibule and walking at once, Taupin suddenly saw how the walls started shifting in a sort of curve that led to ulterior destinations, and the more he walked, the narrower the room became, until it turned into a straight corridor whose end couldn't be guessed.

For hours, Arcturus Taupin walked through a corridor of irregular and shiny walls, because for hours by that entombed pathway Taupin, Arcturus walked, and the more he walked, the longer that stone tube became, and the longer it became, the more amazed Taupin was.

Because the corridor hadn't an end.
Because Arcturus Taupin was obsessed with an end that didn't exist.
Like a man obsessed with a train that already passed.

They say that Arcturus Taupin found an end in the end.

Because they say that an enormous stomach or womb of woman -like a maternal wall of warmth- wrapped him in shadows, while the moon fell in that hallway forever.

Meanwhile, miles away, behind the oil on canvas, a configuration of hollow mirrors show a man in a corridor observed by an obscure stare containing a mixture of coldness and fear.

A stare without a face. A man in a corridor.