musing for fun – caeblogs

‘Attention all passengers, due to a person on the tracks there will be severe delays to this service.’

Great! All I needed was another delay in my already backlogged life. Did people not consider the rest of humanity before flinging themselves in the path of a speeding train? Not that it couldn’t have been an accident, it was just a bit odd that this was the second time this week the tracks had been closed for the same reason.

I sighed and slumped further into the dark dirty seat, trying hard not to dwell on what I might be sitting on. It was hard not to when you took a look around you and saw the people sitting there with you. There was a teenage girl beside me, who smelt like her shower was calling out to her, and a drooling old man who had been asleep since I got on the train. He had probably missed his stop and nobody cared. Then there was the creepy guy who had been staring at me for ages. I was trying not to notice him but it wasn’t easy. Look away, I willed him in my mind.

‘You don’t remember me do you?’

Now he was talking to me? I had been using the underground for eleven years and the only stranger that had spoken to me had been very, very drunk.  

‘Didn’t think so,’ he carried on, dismissing my rude silence. ‘Yesterday at Palmers, we talked for a while.’

No, I yelled in my head, not him again. I had an appointment with the director at Palmers and he had been sitting in the waiting room with me. He had talked non-stop to himself as I nodded out of pity after I realised he wasn’t going anywhere.

‘You remember.’ He read the recognition in my eyes. I could have kicked myself for not hiding my thoughts better. ‘So did you get it?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Whatever it was you were there for? You looked pretty serious in your suit. You had to have been there for a big meeting.’

I decided to try ignoring him again but he wasn’t giving up easily. ‘So where are you off to now? Won’t it be funny if we’re headed for the same place again?’ he laughed at this and I wanted to scream. Okay, his laugh was kind of cute but I wanted him to shut up.

The smelly teen now had her attention totally focused on us. Not only was I trapped in a dingy carriage that was filled with stewing unwashed bodies, I also had to suffer being made a spectacle of by Mr Yakkity-Yak here.

‘Don’t you speak?’

‘Not to you,’ I finally retorted. Read more