The Tube

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. I let myself be carried down into the depths of the earth. It was a fantastic journey — spiralling down into the underground, only to emerge again as if the whole world had changed around me. Yet I had only arrived at another part of the city.

The city itself has changed since then — and so have I — but down there the same strange calm still waits.

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 makes me smile. I lift my hand and follow its movement as it whirls around me. It 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 — like the heartbeat of a living thing. I know 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. When I was a child, I truly believed it, though they said it was only my eyes playing tricks on me.

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

No. They don’t. I can see it in their eyes. They stare ahead or down at their phones. Couples stand hand in hand, yet their eyes never meet. They cling to the right while the impatient stream climbs past on the left. Why do you flee? The world waits.

The slanted posters on the wall show more emotion or interest, though my eyes only slide on them.

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, pressing against the invisible wall running 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 sees me. It 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 not only hear the thunder — it echoes inside me, every part of me trembling. The wind catches my hair again, pushes me back to keep a safe distance, 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 notice 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, where the veins of the earth trace the tunnel walls.

“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 set to the wildest music.

The carriage sways gently. 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 as 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.

My hair tangles as the wind follows me, whispering that it will always be here, waiting. I watch the newcomers 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.

People hesitate for a moment, choosing the proper gate for their path. They obstruct each other. I drift with them, reaching for my pocket out of habit and tapping 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 smell of oily metal dust gives way to damp air thick with petrol fumes and traffic noise.

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. The wind slips through my fingers. It should stay — but it knows I mean it.

I will return.