I had an interesting experience on the underground the other day.
I was on the way back from some place near Wembley at around 11am on a Sunday morning. Why I was all the way out in the middle of nowhere (Zone 4) is another story.
Having had no sleep, and having spent the night in a highly intoxicated state, my altered sense of consciousness finally allowed me to realise that I was not real.
Nothing around me felt tangible. I looked at some of the passengers around me, and their perplexed and/or disproving return glances confirmed to me that I must be an intrusion on somebody else’s dream. As in inception. Why else would they find the presence of a girl wearing a circus ring-woman’s outfit, a flowery dress, patchwork harem trousers and a face of death an issue. I was wearing all clothes available to me because the world was so cold. I have never been so cold on the consistently thirty degrees celcius underground.
The floor seemed incredibly far away from me. I didn’t trust my own thoughts anymore. The metropolitan line was a lie. The metropolitan line was also incredibly comfortable. Rationally, I knew that the metropolitan line was not comfortable. Therefore, this couldn’t be the real metropolitan line.
Next, there was nothing. A peaceful nothing that I wasn’t even aware of. It must be what death is like.
I was abruptly awoken from my nothing-ness by a friendly man in a uniform who informed me that I was in Aldgate. I had been peacefully sleeping on the train for ten minutes after it had stopped at the end of the line, and the driver had alerted a member of station staff. Out of concern or fear, I shall never know.
There isn’t an interesting ending to this short story. My bed felt like the most buttery soft object in the world. For the rest of the week my body clock was severely broken. That’s it. I have not learned any lessons.
