THERE’S NOWT SO QUEER AS FOLK

 

Like laboratory mice in a maze, we are conditioned and set on their path.

It all begins at 6.45 AM when the car pulls off the drive and they travel in silence arriving outside the station at 7.13.

He kisses her cheek and exits the Cherokee.

He spends approximately two minutes purchasing a newspaper and negotiating the barrier and then occupies the same spot on the platform that he has occupied for the past twelve years.

Should he find an interloper standing in his place then they are subjected to the commuter’s version of Paddington’s “hard stare” and if that does not suffice then a loud snort is employed.

Apart from the snort there is no other conversation.

7.17 AM the London train arrives and he boards and stows his brief case then occupies the same seat as every other day opposite the same faces behind the same newspapers.

As soon as he is seated, he opens his own paper, and the train pulls out.

There is no conversation during the journey not even so much as a polite nod in fact no acknowledgment even of the existence of fellow passengers.

The train arrives at Waterloo at 7.43 AM and its contents are disgorged onto the platform and then like lemmings are drawn towards the concourse.

 On the concourse bodies appear to, at least on face value, to have no purpose whatsoever just a chaotic whirlpool of flotsam.

However, on closer examination you find that the chaos is caused not by the Lemmings lack of purpose bat rather in spite of it.

Each Lemming, or perhaps better described now as a Rat, has a purpose and a course but the chaos ensues when all of them refuse to give way.

Like Salmon fighting the rapids and leaping obstacles the melee is eventually escaped and the strange commuter creatures start to disappear down holes and tunnels only to resurface after varying periods of time.

From deep underground, hot, confused and blinking in the daylight and join their fellows on the crowded pavements, still not giving way, until one by one they take refuge in their office buildings.

Eight of nine hours later the mindless commuter creatures reappear to repeat the process but in reverse flooding onto the pavement and flow along the pavement and then down their tunnels like excess rainwater down a storm drain. Emerging at Waterloo the flood water ebbs and flows like a surge tide meeting the mouth of a river.

But with great resilience the strange creatures manage to reach it predetermined destination.

Once on the train he again occupies his usual seat this time opposite a different group of familiar strangers behind their evening papers.

Back in suburbia he leaves the station and gets in the Cherokee and kisses his wife on the cheek.

She says, “How was your day?”

He replies, “OK the usual”

She then recounts the details of her day, which he doesn’t hear.

Once he arrives at his luxurious detached Surrey home, he kisses the children and tucks then in bed.

Then he takes a shower and changes into something comfortable before having dinner with his wife.

He then watches an hour’s TV before going off to bed so that the next day he can do it all again.

The reason he suffers the joys of commuting is to earn the big bucks to pay the huge mortgage on the luxurious big house that he has no time to enjoy.

Not very bright creatures are they.