Train Stories: Part 1 - The Worm's Burrow

London. The marvel that is the Underground. The beauty and the beast. The city and its veins, carrying its blood cells up and down its body.

I wonder if they know I'm an outsider, an imposter riding the worm that swallows us all whole.

As I pull out my burger, bought just out of the train at Euston and carried down escalators and queues, balanced in between bags and luggage, clawed in the grips of a couple of spare fingers like it is precious, I realise everyone is staring. 

Maybe they are hungry.

Maybe to eat is not part of the Tube’s etiquette.

The memory of an article about how the air we breathe in the Tube is full of dust mites and dead skin cells comes to mind. Apparently, it's not recommend for dogs. I try not to think of all the dead cells and dust that must now be stuck to my gooey cheese. And while I savour my dust mite sandwich, the blue and cream inner workings of the metallic worm fascinate me.

The book readers, the sleepers, the make-up doers, the phone zombies, the kissing and sitting on top of each other couples, the drunk and loud, the drunk and gone… The myriad of weird and wonderful blissfully ignoring each other’s presence while sitting touching-arms close.

Ignoring until they realise I'm staring. My curious eyes betraying me, giving my alienness away.

“Please mind the gap and allow passengers to leave the train”.

A man down the carriage starts eating a croissant.

Relief. Maybe I haven’t broken the etiquette. Un-relief. Maybe he is also an outsider.

Either way, by the time I finish my dead cells burger, the red circle with my name on the blue strip comes by and all the doors open with a reassuring beep. Colourful, airbrushed posters lining the beginning of a never-ending maze of tunnels to follow, and numerous stairs to climb until I’m spat out of the worm’s burrow into the fresh air.

Cold and exposed. Another foreigner in the city lights.

Written by: Paola Santana

All rights reserved.

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Train Stories is a four-part series, including three short stories and one poem. I prefer to write long prose, so wrote this one as a short story exercise. I hope you found it enjoyable. :)