He stands by the side of the platform, swaying back and forth slightly. He glances at his watch – the tube is late, for a change. He lets out a slight sigh. His eyes ache to close. It is too early and too cold and all for a job he couldn’t care less about. He figures what other choice does he have – to sit at home and be earning nothing at the same time?
He gets up each morning to work a job he is at once over qualified for and undervalued at. He sits motionless in front of a glaring, cheap, piece of shit PC for 8 hours until the clock hands let him know it is time to go. He figures he shouldn’t complain – at least he has work, others are sure to remind him. Often.
He looks up and down – men in tracksuits and women in worn dresses, not a shimmer of hope between him and the exits. Everyone staring, unseeing, towards something. Some glare into their phones, others hold free papers, some are even reading. They should be reading something I wrote, he thinks. He looks at the clock and sees he has another five minutes to wait. He will be late to work again despite getting up earlier, and again nothing will change and the unions will cry and London is held to ransom.
As it was, as it always shall be. He wonders if anyone else feels as on pause as him. Was this adult life? All there really was on the other side? Working meaningless tasks to earn just enough to not die, rare glimpse of smiles thanks to a drink with mates? He looks around again, no wonder city boys run on coke and we all hit a joint at the weekend, how else do you go on with this?
His lungs seize from another cold. He is always sick now, always. Everyone in London is sick, he thinks. The winter never seems to end. He tries to play some music on his phone but none of it is saved offline, of course there is no signal or service on the tube, why would there be? Why should he expect anything above shit from one of the world’s most rich cities public transport? He starts to think it is time the people owned the trains again, or at least hurry up with making them self driving. He takes in the scum and dirt around him.
His eyes claw for something, anything else to look at and be present in. An advert across from him, stretched from top to bottom of the wall, garish colours and capital letters.
“THE SECRET TO HAPPINESS!!” It screams.
The things he would do for happiness, he thinks, if only he could be bothered. If only it could be bottled and distilled and sold to him for a fiver. To go out of his way and seek it? How? He thinks of all the free time he’d once had, back at University. The most he had ever had and the most he ever would have, no doubt. He would spend days smoking weed and watching Netflix, no external pressure. What an easy time it had been – a time of friends and jokes and smiles and it felt like it’d never end. But it had.
Now here he was – his smart office shoes made his feet ache and his smart shirt was ugly and uncomfortable. He looked at his hands and thought of all the art they’d never made. Hadn’t he meant to become a writer? He remembered writing stories about fantastic worlds, other places and far-off skies, back when his ignorance of childhood had let him dream. But now he saw what the world was, he thought. Another terrorist attack as Europe accepted the new norm. People would tweet their sympathies, get a hashtag going.
It made him fucking sick. All of them did. He felt at once frozen in his time and at the same moment devoid and apart from it. Like some kind of mystical beast, somewhere between the komodo dragon and the ones that attacked knights. He looked again at his hand, half expecting it to fade away as his timeline collapsed inward. Should he be writing now? What was the point? He looked back to the advert.
“Brand new dégoût de soi gives your behind the kindness it (and you) deserve!
#BeKindBehind”
He was disgusted again. Finally! He thought. The secret to happiness, I just need these arse wipes! He almost smiled to himself. Did they not all get it? The proletariat masses, did they not realise how meaningless this rat race was? Did they not understand that they, too, would grow to be old and senile and filthy? That their children would one day throw them away, and after that they would be gone and dead and hardly more than a recollection? It made him sick to his core.
Of course, he was better, he knew it. Because he knew he was in the rat race. He was only here and working and among these sheep because he had no other option, but any day now he would write that fucking novel, and they’d all see. They’d read it and realise his mental superiority. If there was any hope, it lay with the basics, the low-IQ spenders, paying for him. He wanted a house in California. He wanted to be rich and to laugh at them.
Who the fuck was he kidding, he thought. He looked again at the time. More minutes, more waiting. No signal to text that he was going to be late. He wondered how long he’d have to sit at his desk before it was impolite to make himself a coffee, how many mundanities he’d endure today. Tales of sport and ignorant politics, stupidity masquerading as populism. He knew what kinds of papers these people read.
He thought about how alone he was. No matter who he laughed with, drank with, fucked, he was always the only resident of his conscious – although sometimes he felt like others were clawing at the back. No matter what he wrote none of them would see him for the artist he was, the master of the ages he knew himself to be. He wanted children to be taught his stories 100 years from now. He wondered what his legacy would be.
Was he a Kurt Cobain, revelled in death, idealised until the human element was lost? Or was he a Breece D’J Pancake, obscure but loved and appreciated by those ‘in the know’? He wasn’t sure what he’d prefer, so long as people recognised him as a genius. He’d show them. The scraps of stories he had about his desk and home were surely to go down in literary history. To not see his talent was to not see him.
In fact, now that he thought, a good few finished stories were in that desk. And he doubted he had much time left to act out his role as the tortured genius. Kurt and Breece had both been seen as the lights they were because they’d burnt out so quickly – it was better to wish there were more than to be sick of them. Maybe it was time he checked out.
He sat and thought about this familiar idea. Who would miss him? He held out his hands and ticked down each finger as he went – both parents alive, two siblings, at least 7 good friends. He scratched around for more. Coworkers, old Uni chums. He beat 15 and called it enough. Enough to regal reporters with his untapped talent, surely? And another, much more populous pool, of ex lovers. No doubt the papers would seek them out, he figured they must have some good tales to tell. He wondered if their failed romance would be painted in the light of his genius – after all, how could an artist of his stature really live amongst the basics?
He pulled his phone out again, opened up the notes app and dashed down what came to mind for a minute or so, no filter to share his genius. They could find and read and analyse and marvel after he was gone. He put the phone back in his pocket and glanced at the time – less than a minute. He stood up and stood at the edge of the platform. He glanced over at the advert again.
“The secret ingredient? Just add you!” It signed off. The train roared into the station. He closed his eyes, set loose a smile, and let himself fall forwards onto the track.
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