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I’m always left in awe by the most brutally real mystery of my world: the Tube.

I remember the first time I stepped onto the escalator as a child and felt myself carried into the depths of the earth. Even now, the same shiver runs through me as I cross the gates. The rush of the crowd surrounds me – their urgency, their momentum – yet I remain an outsider, only watching them, feeling them. No – they are the outsiders.

At the edge of the stairs, the wind from below slaps my face. It whirls around me, lifts my hair, and I dissolve into it. I step out of the faceless crowd.

The gentle vibrations of the escalator, the soft pull of the rubber handrail beneath my palm – it feels like the heartbeat of a living thing. I feel it senses me, it speaks to me. The expressionless faces rise toward me, tilted forward, hollow-eyed. They seem to hurry uphill – yet they don’t move at all. It’s only my eyes playing tricks on me.

Sometimes I want to shout at them: “Don’t you see it? Don’t you feel this wonder?”

But I only smile. No – they don’t feel it. I can see it in their eyes.

As I step off, eddies of air swirl around me, calling me to play. My fingers flutter in the breeze as it tangles through my hair. I laugh. All around me, people demonstrate entropy with icy professionalism – fluid beings proving they can take the shape of their container, moist against the invisible wall drawn along the platform’s edge.

They don’t even notice the new miracle – a wall with no mass, no form, and yet it stops them.

Only the wind and I may pass.

“Please stand behind the yellow line.”
The voice crackles from above. I laugh again and nod in obedience. The Tube watches over me. It senses me, sees me, listens. The thought soothes me – I am safe.

The wind sweeps harder across my face, and I hear the rumble rising from the depths of the dark. I turn toward it, waiting for the thin streaks of light to race along the rails – and for the headlights that follow, tearing the blackness apart.

Around me, people stare ahead, unmoving, as if everything that matters in the world were written on the wall opposite. I don’t hear the thunder – I feel it, every part of me trembling as the wind catches my hair again and the red-and-white monster rushes past.

The ground trembles beneath my feet, as if the wild earth were trying to buck off the long steel serpent – but the beast is tame now, coming to a halt before me.

“Please mind the gap between the train and the platform.” Of course, I do.

It opens itself and beckons me in – for a journey beneath the world.

I  slip through the shuffling zombies. They don’t see the soft motion of my hand as my fingers curl around the cold metal pole, spinning once before I land on the long bench. 

I’m glad the carriage isn’t full – I can still see out.

“Mind the closing doors.”

Alright, alright. I chuckle to myself and lean back, enjoying the rush, while others just hold on.

Darkness. Harsh light. Faces. Eyes on grey glass. A deep rumble in my chest. Colours and greyness – as if I were watching the most beautiful painting while reading the finest poem, all to the wildest music.

We race through the earth’s darkness. Hundreds of tons of earth above us – people, cars, whole cities in motion.

Yet here, inside the belly of the long monster, everything is calm. Hauntingly so.

“The next station is Holborn. Please have your tickets ready for inspection.”

Certainly. My body tenses slightly. I feel the brakes clamp down, taming the serpent gliding along its polished rails.

I rise as the doors open, brush my fingers once more along the pole, and let the current of fleeing bodies carry me away.

Like sheep to shearing – just a flash – as the pen narrows near the escalators.

I feel the wind following me, whispering that it will always be here, waiting. I watch the newcomers as they flinch back, as if unsure they truly want to go down.

At the top of the steps, three figures try to look stern, but they only look bored.

 

The magic fades. With the others, I reach for my pocket out of habit and tap my travelcard on the terminal.

The gate opens. The woman on the right glances at me for a moment, then turns away, indifferent.

I am invisible.

The wind gives me a small farewell push – gentle, but certain. Yes. It sees me, feels me, as I feel it. I reach my hand back and stroke the air.

I will return.