Lost in Transit

Ah, the joys of public transport. It’s almost a supernatural experience sometimes as it has the ability to take a string of short delays and stretch them into something greater than the sum of their parts.

Public transport is the only thing in my experience that can take three separate five minute delays, which can make you twenty-five minutes late for work. There is something horribly X-Files about the missing ten minutes. Where do they go? What happens to us during that missing time? Do the morlocks of the underground scamper and play amongst aisles of immobile commuters?

Part of me wants to know. Part of me doesn’t.

I should, however, appreciate someone explaining the physics of it all to me. Is there a gravity well involved? It’s always gravity wells in Star Trek…

Lost in Transit

Ah, the joys of public transport. It’s almost a supernatural experience sometimes as it has the ability to take a string of short delays and stretch them into something greater than the sum of their parts.

Public transport is the only thing in my experience that can take three separate five minute delays, which can make you twenty-five minutes late for work. There is something horribly X-Files about the missing ten minutes. Where do they go? What happens to us during that missing time? Do the morlocks of the underground scamper and play amongst aisles of immobile commuters?

Part of me wants to know. Part of me doesn’t.

I should, however, appreciate someone explaining the physics of it all to me. Is there a gravity well involved? It’s always gravity wells in Star Trek…

Days of Birthday Present: A Fast Fiction Challenge for @budgie_uk

Title: Stranger and Stranger
Word: set
Challenger: @budgie_uk
Length: 200 words exactly
I am always on the look out for interesting places: buildings, streets alleyways that just don’t fit the neighbourhood. It’s a hobby that I developed when I had very little money to spend and time on my hands.
As I walked back and forth from interview to job centre, or indeed anywhere and everywhere – transport was a luxury in those days – I entertained myself by uncovering the nooks and crannies of the City. Believe me when I tell you that twenty-odd years later, though I am better placed, I have yet to run out of places to explore.
So it was that one summer day in the oppressive and ever-present heat I was making my hopeful way to an appointment, I noticed the building. I’d been that way dozens of times before, but never noticed it. I was not the only one standing bemused: it was one of those ancient Tudor buildings that pepper the City, crammed untidily between the modern towers. I had often pondered their survival, set between the steel and glass monsters.
And then I understood my and others’ bewilderment. Yesterday this had been empty space. The old building had simply moved in like a hermit crab.

© Bryan Lea, 2010

(cross-posted to just_writing)

Days of Birthday Present: A Fast Fiction Challenge for @budgie_uk

Title: Stranger and Stranger
Word: set
Challenger: @budgie_uk
Length: 200 words exactly
I am always on the look out for interesting places: buildings, streets alleyways that just don’t fit the neighbourhood. It’s a hobby that I developed when I had very little money to spend and time on my hands.
As I walked back and forth from interview to job centre, or indeed anywhere and everywhere – transport was a luxury in those days – I entertained myself by uncovering the nooks and crannies of the City. Believe me when I tell you that twenty-odd years later, though I am better placed, I have yet to run out of places to explore.
So it was that one summer day in the oppressive and ever-present heat I was making my hopeful way to an appointment, I noticed the building. I’d been that way dozens of times before, but never noticed it. I was not the only one standing bemused: it was one of those ancient Tudor buildings that pepper the City, crammed untidily between the modern towers. I had often pondered their survival, set between the steel and glass monsters.
And then I understood my and others’ bewilderment. Yesterday this had been empty space. The old building had simply moved in like a hermit crab.

© Bryan Lea, 2010

(cross-posted to just_writing)