Bubbles

My life is pretty monotonous. I get up in the morning at about 6:30am and get ready for work. I make my way to the tube station and wait patiently with the hordes of other Londoners, inwardly contemplating the day ahead. Or maybe we're all thinking about anything but the day ahead. The tube train arrives and as one we all get on, seamlessly cascading through the people who get off the Tube at our station. It's a great system really, requiring very little external input from the public. Then we all stand, or if we're one of the fortunate few, sit, until we get to our chosen destination. Then upon the opening of the train doors we descend upon the platform and the seamlessly cascading would-be passengers. The amazing thing in all this, is that there is little to no interaction between us. We get on and get off without making eye contact, without speaking. It's as if we're little bubbles travelling around in bigger bubbles just moving from one bubble to the next bubble.

I was on the train, like I am every morning, and then someone next to me disappeared. I say disappeared, but it wasn't quite like that. Not there one microsecond, gone the next. Firstly there was a shimmering light near her feet - it was a lady maybe forty years old, slim, classic faux Lady Diana hair, power dresser - and then it was as if her feet began to melt into the floor of the train. Slowly she was pulled down, her whole body melting. But the thing was, from having the London face (non-committal, vacant stare into the distance, kind of like a cat taking a dump) she suddenly looked happy, even exultant as she was pulled down, arms outstretched above her head. It all looked quite religious really. Then she was gone. I stood aghast at what had happened and looked around at the other passengers. Nothing, no reaction, no eye contact, no 'oh my god, a lady has just disappeared in front of my eyes' kind of hysteria. I was the only one looking round. Could I really have been the only one to see a woman disappearing in front of my eyes, melting into the floor, a shimmering white light around her and an almost beatific look on her face. I started to doubt myself. Maybe it had been an acid flashback, a legacy of my sporadic misspent youth. Or maybe I'd just closed my eyes for a second and drifted off , dreaming the whole thing. That must be it. So I settled back into my bubble.

I'd forgotten about the incident, in fact dismissed it as some kind of aberration, until another strange occurrence two days later. Again in the tube, somewhere between Oxford Circus and Tottenham Court Road, I was standing (again) and my eyes, avoiding all humans in the vicinity, slid to look at the reflections in the window. There I saw what looked like several ghostly people playing basketball. They were all facing a wall with what looked like some kind of helmet on and their arms were moving up and down like they were bouncing an invisible ball. Also, their legs were moving up and down similar to an exaggerated walking on the spot.  I looked over my shoulder involuntarily, because, you know, I'm not really going to see helmet wearing basketball players on a tube train behind me. And sure enough. The same old blank faces studiously focused on empty space or reading the advertising boards for the millionth time. I fancied I half-caught someone's eye, a middle-aged man with slick, grey hair, balding, but it must have been my imagination. Which I eventually put the basketball players in the window down to. The mind plays tricks, I'm tired just going in to work never mind coming home. It's funny that people never seem happier, more animated, at the end of the day. You'd think that heading home would put some spark into them, but whatever extinguished it in the first place seems to have an extended effect. Even weekends, when any sane person who spends the week commuting would avoid the underground, it's the same. Maybe there's a half-life. Hell, this isn't even a half a life.

The dull monotony of the week is broken only by the slightly more infuriatingly dull monotony of the weekend. My social life is pretty non-existent. I moved to London straight after university and threw myself into my job. There was no culture of going to the pub after work, there was relatively little interaction within the workplace. Maybe that's what comes of chasing a career based on monetary gain rather than what I love to do. So, I'm a chartered accountant and I sit in front of my PC for most of the day. At weekends I do some shopping, sit around listening to music, watching some sport if it's on. The lack of activity during the week seems to sap my strength and resolve for the weekend and it's all I can do to laze around and recharge my batteries. Sometimes I daydream and think, "right, today I'm going to get the train to Brighton" or, "I'll ask so and so the PA out for a drink". But I never do. In fact, the brief imaginations in the tube are the most interesting things to have happened to me for a long, long time. I mused about it over the weekend, wondered about the two happenings, but only in an abstract fashion, not like it ever actually 'happened'. So when monday came and I was forcing myself to embrace the week ahead I had pretty much forgotten about everything. Again. It happened again. This time I was maybe closer to Marble Arch, yeah, you guessed it, standing. Daydreaming about what I would do when I retired early with all the money I was never going to make. I vaguely recognised the man standing next to me in the tube on the way to work. Middle-aged, slick, grey hair. Yeah, I'd imagined I'd caught his eye when I'd seen the basketball people reflection. I guess I took a risk sizing him up, he might have looked back at me. Anyway, as I said, it happened again. The light started shimmering at his feet, they began to melt into the train, the look of unbridled joy on his face as he was pulled down into god knows where. It's got to be good, right, it's a nice, bright, white light. His arms outstretched just like the woman before him - more "Hallelujah!" than "for fucks sake grab my hands!!" - and then he was gone.  I stood in shock and disbelief. Was I going insane? Another person had just disappeared in front of my eyes and nobody had said a word about it. The train stopped and commuters jostled for position in the train, walking over where the grey-haired man had been only 30 seconds before. How could no-one have seen it? Or even if they had, why didn't anyone say anything?  This and more was flying around my head, my heart thudding against my chest, my legs feeling like they themselves were melting into the floor. I grabbed one of the hand rungs to steady myself.

 

The day passed quickly for once, my thoughts running over and over what had happened on the train. On the way home I bought a newspaper for the first time in years, looking to see if there was any mention of mysterious, melting disappearances on the underground. Unsurprisingly there was nothing and the journey back to my flat was uneventful. The next day I was almost looking forward to. As awful as people disappearing in the tube was, there's something fascinating about it. It broke the tedium (have you noticed how many synonyms we have for that, doesn't that tell you something?). It was the most exciting thing to happen to me for years. I was whistling as I walked to the tube station and when I stepped on the train I had a real sense of anticipation. Even my hands were a bit clammy. I watched the people around me, my eyes sliding to the windows as the tunnel walls sped by. Every so often a blue electric spark would make me tense up, but nothing happened. Just as I was starting to relax before  my stop, I saw a reflection in the window. Not semi-robotic basketball players this time, it was like a glove. Just a glimpse and it was gone. I could have imagined it again, but then I'm not really beginning to trust my imagination very much. Either I'm going mental or, well, just or.

That night I sat thinking about what I'd been seeing. Mysterious melting people with unbridled joy dissolving into the train. Pseudo robotic basketball players with helmets and gloves on. And a glove by itself. Although it didn't really look like a glove, but similar.

Over the next few days another two people melted into the train (both on same day - on the commute into work and on the way home), the basketball players returned, looking almost comedic if I'm honest and the 'glove' stayed just outside of a firm identification. No one else in the trains seemed to notice. When the people melted, no reaction, when the basketball players did their dance in the window, no reaction. I guess I'm not surprised that a 'glove' didn't elicit a huge response from the lobotomised throngs. It was only during this period that I began to think (I should stop that sentence there really) that the window images and melting people might be connected. - "Bravo Sherlock!!", I hear you cry. In mitigation, I've been brain-dead for years and it's only now waking up. The commute and job does that to you.

The weekend came and for once I had a purpose. I sat at home with my computer and endless cups of coffee searching for reports of missing people. It's amazing how many people go missing every day. I mean, I wouldn't have the first idea about how to disappear completely and stay alive. Most of my thoughts about getting away from it all involve cessation of life. Still, there can't be that many people killed every day in the country, let alone London. Time and again I read of reports of adults leaving home for work, or leaving work for home, like they had done thousands of times before and not arriving at their destination. No closure for the families, big 'unsolved' red stamps on their police files. I found a picture in one newspaper that looked a bit like my middle-aged, grey-haired man but I couldn't be sure.  Even if I was sure what could I say? "Hi, I saw your husband/father melt into the train the other day. There was a big, white light. It's ok, he looked really happy about it. Really." That's if he even had a family; there was no mention in the article. The neighbours had said he was quiet, introverted, never any trouble. With a shudder I saw myself in thirty years time.

I resolved to travel the underground all sunday, after all, I had only ever really been on the central line, as that's all I needed for work. Was this a London-wide phenomenon or just restricted to one line? I started on the Central line, nothing. Getting off at Holborn I travelled north on the  Piccadilly line. I saw nothing. Maybe it was just a weekday phenomenon I mused. Getting off at Finsbury Park I hopped on to the Victoria line. Just as we were coming to Oxford Circus I had my my first melter of the day, a fairly sombre looking punk with numerous piercings and tattoos. It made me wonder, as Oxford Circus is on the Central line, but after I got off there and hopped on to the Bakerloo line I saw the basketball players just before I reached Waterloo. I fancied that I saw the punk who'd  just melted in front of me, same build, same t-shirt, maybe even a tattoo on his arm and creeping out at the neck, but you can hardly tell when you're looking at a supposed reflection in a window. I began to feel strongly that the glove was the key to unravelling the mystery. It had changed slightly in the window, becoming clearer every time I had seen it. I got off at Waterloo and hit the Northern line up towards Tottenham Court Road. I was knackered and figured it was time to go home. The underground seems to lack anything of interest, any spark, and spending all day on the trains surrounded by disinterested, mundane people - well, I felt drained. Back on the Central line I took a seat and closed my eyes for a minute, reflecting on what I had seen. When I opened them again I saw the glove, clear as day in the opposite window. It was like a slimmed down baseball glove, it looked black, maybe brown and there seemed to be wires coming from it, but it was hard to be sure, but there it was, a slim baseball mitt. The realization was overwhelming. I hadn't a fucking clue what it meant.

Disappointed, I got off at my station and walked home. It was late, 8pm, by the time I got to my flat. I'd stopped off to pick up some takeaway and eating it straight from the cartons I switched on the tv. I flicked through the channels...sport, not in  the mood....soap, too, well, no....films, Clint Eastwood, Arnie, the end of Terminator 2 when the T-800 is lowered into the molten steel and gives the thumbs up sign. That caused a lightbulb to go off in my head. Robots, wires, helmets, basketball players, gloves, melting people, the punk. Were the basketball players the same as the melting people? Were the basketball players taking people from the tube to somehow join them? What was the glove? A robotic hand...no...virtual reality maybe? They all have helmets on, maybe they're seeing something else or protecting hteir vision. Convinced I was on to something I hardly slept all night, anxious to go to work the next morning. Running everything round and round my head, again and again. I barely noticed anything, anyone, the next morning as I got on the train at the underground station. I stood thinking, thinking, thinking. Until I noticed the light. I looked at the people around me, they were fine. Then I looked down. My feet had disappeared into the floor and the light was bright and shining. I was being pulled down. At last I'd know what was going on. I felt alive.

 

 

tags: bubbles, London, creative writing, stories, werewolf, underground