A Thoroughly Odd Experience
It’s an odd experience, when you take a moment to consider exactly what it is you’re doing. Blinking away the almost comatose blur and looking around, you feel a strange sense of incomprehensible understanding. In the instant that one unasked question is answered, you enter a whole new realm of perplexity that you are as yet unaware of.
Your gaze drifts at first as you come out of your reverie, recognising shapes and colours that milliseconds previously were lost in the distortion of a boredom induced trance. The first aspect of your surroundings that comes into focus appears both unnatural and yet a perfectly typical, if not mundane, aspect of your daily life. It is but momentary as your eyes dart towards something more vivid in the background.
A sharp and insistent blare followed by a muted sliding sound, forces you to look round further, taking in more of your current setting. In this moment you either press the standby button again, or if you’re feeling contemplative, you may have one of those existential experiences that at least for an instant, cloud your mind and take over your consciousness.
People begin to take form in your blurred pool of vision, a host of people pressed together; some clutching books, others mobile phones, while yet more appear lifeless, their thousand-yard stare blank like a virgin canvas.
You ponder, momentarily, the distinct absurdity of your situation. The air is hot, stifling in its closeness. What slight movement there is in the atmosphere does little to alleviate the claustrophobic sensation that you are breathing air unchanged in years.
Another whooshing sound and a mass exodus ripples through the crowd around you. A wave of relief passes through your body as the density of humanity dissipates, only to come back with a vengeance as the population increases again.
Looking up you try to calculate how long you must continue to endure this discomfort, counting the minutes, the seconds, the milliseconds till your reprieve will be complete.
Not long left now. You can feel the anticipation rising. Soon you will taste the sweet sensation of freedom, of fresh air on your skin and in your lungs. The expectancy sustains you, keeps you going.
You grip your support more firmly as the speed drops rapidly, feeling a jolt as everything comes to a complete stop. This time you are part of the mass exodus, trying not to jostle those around you as those with less patience push through the throngs.
Maybe it isn’t so bad after all; perhaps your previous state of mind was a little melodramatic.
You’re home now. You can rest and recuperate, ready to do it all over again tomorrow… and the day after that… and the day after that… and the day after that…
Hello dear reader,
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David Alliband
