London Tube Gems (March)

Ursule Demaël
Apr 1, 2023
6 min read

one

On my way home, there was a man who emptied all his backpack content (three Tupperwares, a handwritten list, a bulky keychain) on his lap to find his book. It was a huge book. About a minute after, he took out a pill holder and swallowed a pill from the third compartment. It is Tuesday, so I wondered if his week starts on Sunday, or whether the compartments are for times of day, or whether he follows a different format. He swallowed it without water. There was also a guy with a OM&M Tshirt-under it said "Of Mice and Men, Orange County". I really wonder why you would wear "Of Mice and Men" merch.

two

Today, there is a Tube strike. Working from home again, with the apathy that it fills you with. Around mid-day, I go for a walk. I maybe need to compensate for time "gained" this morning by spending some time "doing nothing". There are cherry blossom trees, still stringy, but starting to bear some flowers. On a bus that drives past, there is a "Driver in Training "sign. At the back, there are three men in yellow vests. A man shoots by on a purple and yellow motorbike. I can't help but think that he looks like a Cadbury Creme egg. I suppose they don't go on strike

three

There are children on a field trip on the Tube. One of them picked up a Metro newspaper and is authoritatively filling up the crosswords, with a few of his classmates peering over his shoulder. I watch them bounce up and down as the carriage hiccups, it makes me think of something. Latching on to that image almost feels too burdensome in that moment though, as my mind rushes with all the obligations of the day. Meetings with my supervisor. A team I need to meet with. A business call. The unexpected lab results from yesterday. Unanswered messages on my phone. Preparing data for my report.

Salient images return though, I trust that whatever struck me at that moment will re-surface in due time, maybe when I have more time to make space for it.

In the evening, the image came back. The thing I wanted to describe with the children is that they were bouncing up and down when the carriage hiccuped on the tracks, almost exaggerating its motions, acting like the train would obey them and continue shaking up and down. This reminded me of consciousness as this passive commentator that believes it has agency, but is really a surface layer describing what already is.

four

soft, enduring cadence of every day life. nothing notable to report. at one point in the evening, the sequence of events that was highly likely to occur seemed to unfold like a scroll. I thought, why do I have to personally go through the motions of it? Won't the statistical likelihood of it all take care of it for me? Scan your access card, take this turn here, go down the stairs, go to the gym, take the Tube back? On the way back, I decide not to listen to music, half because I have reached a point of saturation, and half because I think it might be more interesting to just look at people.

On the Jubilee line, there is a drug addict. I guess it within a few seconds of looking at her, then try to think back to why it was instantly recognisable. Tied back brown bun. Skinny, stretched out face, almost curved like a comma, or a kidney bean. Tennager's clothes, a Nike hoodie and those ugly sweatpants bottoms with the little white streaks inside the grey. She coughs, not just regular coughing, but something up deep from her throat, half-way between a cough and sneeze. It happens multiple times. Her body is literally poisoned, damaged. I start to feel a little uncomfortable. At some point, she takes her phone out, starts playing Tik Toks out loud, very loud. There are some Shakira songs. Crude remakes of popular songs. She kind of laughs at them, folds her knees and rests her feet on the seat. I feel a mix of warmth and distant incomfort.

Oddly enough, I am reading Dante. Eight Circle, Fourth Bolgia, Canto XX. Soothsayers. Virgil scolds Dante for feeling pity for the damned he sees, arguing it is ungodly to have pity for what goes against God's word. I stand a bit puzzled. I do not feel reprimand or reproach, that is not my position to hold. I only wonder how old she is, where she is going.

>Art thou, too, of the other fools?

>Here pity lives when it is wholly dead

>Who is a greater reprobate than he

>Who feels compassion at the doom divine?

five

it is half past midnight and I am on a Tube in the outskirts of London. The airy notes of a waltz fill the padded air, though my earphones. At this time, most people are on their phones, or napping, fewer are reading than earlier in the day. My mind is guided, almost alongside tracks cast down by the music. They set out a wonderful path alongside which my thoughts simply glide effortlessly, still alert but firmly guided.

six

Today, I watched two children on the Metropolitan line playing Rubik's cubes.

- "Let's start from scratch"

- "What stage are you at?"

- "Stage 3"

- "No you were at Stage 4 when we started. That's cheating"

- "Should we race?"

- "But you have a Speedy-Cube, that's no fair."

- "Imagine being stuck on infinite yellow"

I love watching these two, I keep my headphones on, play a podcast, but keep a small space in my heart open to watch them.

seven

It is Saturday. A friend texts me to meet up, I take the Tube. The Central Line is down. On weekends there is a different flavour to this all, it feels a lot more intentional. The busyness of the city and the hustle of commuting is entirely different because today I chose it, and there is no notion of time wasted. I take a detour then, walk in Soho.

Later that evening, in the station, there was a woman with a pram at the bottom of the stairs. I offered to help her and waited as she took the pram apart, it separated into two parts, the frame with the wheels and then the actual cot with the baby. I fumbled for a second, because I expected that she wanted me to carry the frame, that she wouldn't just trust me with the baby. But she handed me the cot with the baby, so I started to walk up, making sure I put enough grip and kept it as still as possible, taking it up as smoothly as I could up the two flight of stairs. I was watching that the baby was still asleep, did not want to disrupt it. At the top, we locked the cot back in the frame. The baby was still asleep.

eight

On the Tube today, I saw an old man waiting with a bag of Aqua di Gioia bag. I guessed it must be a gift for his grand-daughter. There is a girl with a nice necklace, two vertical bands that are not perfectly aligned. I thought to compliment it, but then I had my earphones in, and also thought it would be a little weird, sometimes you mean well but it can be a bit intrusive. Sometimes silence is the best policy

nine

I arrived in a familiar station, but coming from other line. This is one thing that is enthralling about the first few moments when you live in a new city. The threads of places I have visited are coming together, like segments of DNA annealing by finding their overlap regions, or pieces of a puzzle imbricating.

I recognise a street, where I had dinner with a friend last year. I see the place we were walking when we headed to that bar a month ago. I see this shop I sat in to call someone for an entire hour last time. It is slightly drizzling.

ten

there are two suspicious looking men, one upright, the other sitting down. the one who is standing up has one of these huge blue IKEA bags. two of his fingers are tied together with an elastic band. they must be broken, or injured, and the elastic band is acting as a makeshift cast. a girl walks on, she is reading a Kundera. her hands are covering it, so for a while I don't see the title. Infidelity. great book. one child comes up and sits on his mother's lap. he has a splendid face. too many things are happening at once. the parallel lives of public transport can be entertaining, but when added to the volume of your own thoughts, with their noisiness and their tumult, they can overfill your peace and turn it to disquiet.