An old one resurrected from notes as my first offering, with much relief at not having to buy that ticket any more. 
Perhaps just another self-help memo to self, one more depressed soul cranking out the angst in the misguided belief that I have anything worth writing or sharing or expressing. Something to do when the black dog stalks the shadows and his footfalls pad through your waking days.

based on jottings October 2000


The London commute, a slavering rat-pack pressed into carriages riding the rails to town. Wary yellow eyes guarding the remnants of personal space. The carriage seething with suppresed neuroses to be disgorged tumbling onto the platform joining streams and rivers of others.

Marching in thousands, pressing to the underground. Stop, start, shuffling, stumbling in hot blasts of dry air. Four deep on the platform edge watching train after train rumble through, faces pressed to the doors and no room to breathe. Tempers fray and patience snaps and the front line force themselves on into impossible spaces. Trying to beat the system through sheer force and frustrated will.

The morning's briskly flowing mainline concourse stagnant and congested in the evening, the crowd tired, dirty with weary eyes as one on the flickering departure boards. The evening blown by the time the train rolls home, wolfing down reheated food. Kissing sleeping children, their days blanked in unknowable silence. Time missed and hours gone from their lives. Mind numbing TV and soul numbing booze the only route to do it all again as the morning rolls back in.