Thursday, January 19, 2006

So anyway ...

the train stopped at Streatham Common ... it wasn't supposed to stop at Streatham Common, but it did.
It waited for five minutes before the driver crackled onto the intercom.
"There's a gas leak in Battersea, so I have to wait here ...
any passengers that want to get off to stretch their legs or to have a cigarette, please do so"
That of course is a sign, it means, this could take a while. So I wait.
twenty minutes go by and nothing.
More crackling intercom.
"I am being told that this could be a while, so any passengers who need to make alternative arrangements
...ohh
hang on"

So I hang on.
Along with everyone else.

All through this episode there is an extraordinarily irritating girl on the telephone, very loud, speaking absolute nonsense to another immensely irritating girl on another train, probably also stationary due to the enforced inability in gaining a passage through the toxic miasma that is Battersea.

Now under normal circumstances, this person would be tolerable, everyone knowing that the maximum amount of time that we had to spend listening to the imbecilic blatherings of this complete dullard, would be a mere ten minutes, tops.
But.
Sitting at Streatham Common, with no sign of a conclusion.

I am chewing the carpet already.
I want to stand up and scream "SHUT UP!"
I want to jam the mobile that she is croaking into up her arse, and I want the man sitting next to me to hold her legs apart while I do it, and I want the russian girl opposite me (don't ask I just know) to batter her with her own arm, the one was ripped off by the older man sitting next to her ...

We all feel it now, that killing feeling ...

and I bet its the same on the other train, with the other girl, at the other god-forsaken station they are stuck on.

I have to get off ...
the feeling is so strong that I barge,
then I'm on the platform, making decisions,
about getting a bus, then a tube.

I'm nearly off the platform

Shouts from the Guard
"Everyone back on, the train is able to leave"

So I leap back on, into a quiet carriage, sedate even, prepared to continue this nightmare. The train moves away and the crackle comes back ...

"Due to the gas leak at Battersea we will be terminating at Clapham Junction"

fuck

1 Comments:

Blogger Lagowski said...

You should have walked. But then again, you might have been mugged if you had shown the smallest sign of being disorientated. Bloody trains! Bloody mobile users! Make sure when you ram the mobile up the ar** of the next annoying person, that you have the video recorder mode on and running - we want it all blogged as soon as it happens.

1:56 pm  

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