...so intoned the announcer, with a regret that was smeared on like cosmetics on an over-zealous teenage girl. The exhalation of irritance reverberated around the crowded platform like a Mexican wave. Sensing the collective brewing of discontent, a toddler in its mother's arms began to wail, whilst a man further along the platform swore loudly before diving back inside the pages of his Evening Standard as though ashamed of his uncharacteristic coarseness. There followed an advisement to seek alternative modes of transport but, it seemed, this time the people's patience had begun to seriously fragment.
The quotidian nature of the tube, so much a reluctant entity burrowing its way through people's lives, had been reeling in almost perpetual paralysis since the descent onto London of the world and their personal trainers for the duration of the Olympic Games. Now, 9 days in - with the stench of anti-climatic disappointment palpable in the air - it seemed like finally the people had had enough; all apparently operating on some kind of mass telepathic apoplexy.
Ignoring the tannoy pleas for passengers to find solace on additional bus routes being provided, the people across the network - from Elephant & Castle to Maida Vale began to rise up and barricade themselves inside the stations, easily overriding station officials who were only too happy to surrender their posts and clock off early.
The people, growing from initial hesitancy into unabashed enthusiasm, quickly formed distinct factions, adopting their own roles and responsibilities as part of this improvised subterranean lock-in. Women and young children gathered together food supplies from the various newspaper stands and vending machines, whilst besuited City types took charge of the distribution and allocation of resources. Burly men fought off the immediate attempts by police to bring an end to the unfolding subway seige and gain entry, but these efforts were hastily pacified by higher authorities.
Indeed, government, eager to avoid drawing attention to the civil disobedience whilst the spotlights were brightly trained on the city, declared a media blackout on the event and all attempts to coerce information from them were met with feigned ignorance and dismissal. And so the decision was made simply to contain the situation and wait for it to reach its own conclusion, as if there had been an outbreak of some malignant virus which needed to be isolated in quarantine.
Once everyone became aware of their prolonged confinement it was intriguing to note the effects that manifested themselves in this new submerged community. Initially, realising the loss of online connectivity was total, many lapsed into states of withdrawal sickness, hugging themselves tightly, sweating without exertion, and compulsively checking electronic devices in the vain hope that their feeble signal may have been received and beamed back. Tourists, who were from the outset rather alarmed at this development sending their plans awry, slowly came to accept the situation; perhaps considering it to be some kind of underground carnival that their guidebooks had omitted to mention.
Everyone waited on the platforms for the next trains to roll on through; everyone melted through the doors like grains of sand in an hourglass, but people chose to depart from their normal routes, sensing almost that they had been liberated from oppressive routine and were now free to stretch out across the network. They chose to ride the Northern line instead of Circle, Waterloo instead of Piccadilly, or stayed on until Zone 4 instead of normally disembarking in the frontier land of Zone 3. Ingrained habits were still evident - there was still the furtive surveillance of the carriage in an effort at locating a vacant seat, and many still raced for the closing doors, apparently unconcerned with the fact that they no longer had any appointments to keep. Slowly, people began to tire of the free newspapers - which were after all, several days old - and began to interact with one another, as nervous and shy as couples on a first date.
Once this major milestone had been reached the underground began to resemble an ant colony of collective high spirits, almost harking back to the times of the Blitz (only this time the only horrors being evaded were equestrian or synchronised swimming heats). The tunnels echoed with the joyous sounds of open and unlicensed busking from every white-tiled alcove; and children wore themselves out racing up and down escalators. Each station was alive with a celebratory kinship of the kind that government had been so desperate to invoke nationwide; each train running between stations was like patriotic bunting being draped all across the city.
Of course such solidarity could not last for long. Like phosphorus the glow would burn fast and fade faster. News seeped down into the network that the Olympic torch had been lowered and cradled off by the next nation, the structures dismantled and packed away, and the swimming pools drained. The sense of melancholy and slight embarrassment was pervasive amongst the community; they had stayed at the nightclub right until the end, with the music stopped, lights brightened and the awful feeling that they should have left several hours ago. Eye contact began to drop, glances were lowered and hands nervously twitched at gadgets once again.
Slowly but steadily the people began to rise up from the underground like a defeated guerilla army, blinking aggressively at the daylight glare, shoulders weighing heavy as they foraged for excuses for their rebellion like guilty teenagers returning to the parental home. Normal life could now resume its delayed course.
No comments:
Post a Comment