Thursday 20 September 2012

Object Writing 14

Today’s word – ‘Tube’

Down in the realm of the dead, a withered place of no return, a tunnel stretches into infinity. This feat of urban engineering, a gateway into the world beyond, is air-conditioned by the chill fear of unknowing and swept daily by the trailing rags of the dispossessed.

Standing on the platform’s hard edge, some ancient fear, buried deep, submerged beneath a surface of acceptable behaviour, screams out. Its echo, trapped in the tiled walls, cries “Do not ride this tube.”

Pulsating breezes, followed by vibrations which travel up my spine, turn me about as some invisible hand in the small of my back pushes me towards the escalator and I rise from the deep and step, blinking, into the world of cars, buses and scurrying workers. I breathe deep, inhaling the full life of fumes and dusty streets, and am glad.