It's yet another granite grey Monday morning and, tired and hungover, I board a crowded tube train to travel from my palatial home in West London to my drab and dreary workplace in East London. The train carriage is stiflingly hot and smells of fried onions, cuppa soup and disappointment. Or maybe that’s just me.
I eventually drift into a pitch-black, dreamless sleep until the rattling of the tube train drags me by my lapels back into a panful consciousness. The carriage is migraine bright as I peel back my eyelids only to be confronted by a coterie of grotesques worthy of a Hieronymus Bosch painting.
Are they vengeful ghouls unearthed from the murky depths of the London Underground to wreak havoc up the city’s denizens? Or perhaps they’re spectres of my past sins and transgressions here to haunt and torment me?
And then the tube train driver makes a chilling announcement that confronts me with the soul-sapping truth. The train has arrived at Canning Town Tube Station and another claustrophobic working week is about to begin. Really, I think I'd have preferred the spectres, truth be told.
© Paul D. Brazill
Good one, Paul!