by Andy Marlow
***
Thomas Wilson lurched backwards. His consciousness interrupted for a second, a strange tearing sensation in his mind and a second’s black-out: then he found himself falling backwards, his balance lost, his fall cushioned by one large, female commuter behind him.
She shoved him away in disgust. He muttered his apologies and glanced around inquiringly, searching for a source to explain his sudden movement. Yet there was none- not an obvious one, at least. Before him was a scene typical to any Londoner on the daily commute: a thick throng of anonymous people, all wearing androgynous clothing and forming one huge mass, trudging sluggishly out of the Tube station and into the crisp, cool air of one November night. The moon was barely visible through the light pollution provided by the brilliance of London’s central shopping district at six o’clock in the evening. It was Thursday: late night shopping, which had only added to the misery of crowded public transport in one of the world’s largest metropolises.
In the sea of heads before him, Thomas could make out a cross-section of the diversity of modern, multicultural Britain: he saw black hair, white hair, red hair and blue; Asian, Caucasian, African and White; mohawked punks filing alongside pensioners with perms, both sharing the same aim of returning home. Yet none of them appeared as though they had just pushed him. None of them even appeared to have noticed him.
Perhaps the cause was mental. As he thought this, he experienced a curious sensation in his brain, a direct continuance of his falling and fainting: a strange sense of déja vu overcame him, like something terrible had just happened to him, only he couldn’t quite remember it. It perplexed and disturbed him, for he was normally quite a rational man who did not succumb to such sensations. He prided himself on being scientific- despite having no understanding of science, and despite having occupied himself until two years previously as a student of English Literature- and deplored mystical, unexplained experiences. They unnerved him and shook his worldview, leading him to question the most basic premises upon which he had based his life and made himself comfortable.
Luckily he was spared the necessity of such questioning. As quickly as the sensation had come over him, it was gone, and he was once more Thomas Wilson, mentally unhindered, travelling home from work at the offices of the Daily Herald newspaper.
He relaxed. The crisis was over. As he continued on his way home to the elegant apartment he owned in the Docklands area of London, he allowed his mind to be distracted from its recent mental aberration by burying itself in considerations of the hard day’s work it had just done, and the assignment set for tomorrow.
