Departure

I folded my copy of The Daily Telegraph, placed it under my arm, grabbed my walking stick and rose to my feet, wobbling slightly as the train came to a halt. "Excuse me I said to the thin-lipped, blonde-haired young lady who sat next to me, listening to one of those new-fangled musical contraptions. As yet she'd made no attempt at making any extra space for me to vacate my seat by, but this did the trick. "Much obliged I said somewhat sarcastically as she twisted her body round forty-five degrees so that I could pass by. Throughout the exchange her face remained expressionless.

Luckily I'd chosen the seat closest to the exit, right in the middle of the second carriage, so only had to wade through a few standing passengers (and their baggage), who'd boarded en-masse at Gatwick, to get to the exit. It certainly was everyman for himself these days; one little ruffian almost knocked me to the floor, so eager was he to get the seat I'd just left. If his mother had any manners she'd have made him stand and let an adult take it but no, no, these days everyone's far too concerned about their precious little brats.

I jostled my way off the train and winced at the rather large drop onto the platform, an inch lower and I fear I would have fallen into a pile on the ground, losing my hat and with my legs sticking out at funny angles (oh the thought). And even when both feet were firmly planted on the concourse, I was almost pushed backwards into the gap between the train and the platform by the garble of passengers desperate to board the cursed train. I never realised people were in such a desperate hurry to get to work theses days. I sighed as the wall of people before me blurred into each other, their faces a collection of hues smudged into one, a puddle of flesh, acrylic suits, cotton shirts, nylon blouses, trainers and leather shoes.

I nudged my way through a small causeway left by the eager mob, and walked toward the station exit. Although it was only a few hundred yards my journey took sometime. This was mainly due to the erratic nature of the people around me. Some would weave in and out of the crowd, darting all over the place, rushing as fast as they could to escape the platform, while others walked at a snails pace, unconcerned that behind them there were five-hundred people trying to make there own way off the platform in a speedier fashion, and hopefully before the onset of Autumn. The most annoying were those who simply stopped on the spot, completely unaware of the annoyance they were causing and seemingly unable to conceive of a world beyond themselves.

One woman, who dressed like a psychedelic nightmare from the sixties, did this several times, on each occasion managing to block the platform to all comers. The third time this happened I'd had enough and gently kicked her in the back of the legs. "Terribly sorry. I said "I wasn't expecting you to stop - yet again. At this her head snapped round like some mechanical contraption on a stick and she turned to glare at me. Her hair was dyed black, and very badly at that - I could see the grey roots ' and her skin was sallow, pale and white. She was obviously a heavy smoker as she wore a matt magenta lipstick, that already at this early juncture of the day was beginning to seep into the cracks around her lips and mouth. That said it was difficult to guess her age; she had a child-like aspect to her face but could have been any age from forty to late sixties. She fixed me with beady little bloodshot eyes and spoke, or rather hissed, in a haughty, clipped voice: "Well watch where you're going in future! My little kick had done the trick though, for she let me pass and I continued on my way.

The station lobby and ticket barrier were located at the top of a long sloping ramp which, though better than steps, was something of a challenge for someone of my age. The ordeal was not helped by the fact that every so often one had to be prepared to dodge someone running, or should I say hurtling, in the opposite direction. Also, the dazzling July sunshine shone brightly through the plate glass windows, making me feel dizzy.

As I walked my mind wandered back (as it often does these days) to an event from earlier that morning. The little bathroom window in my flat had been open the night before and a spider had chosen to make its web in the bottom left hand corner of it. It was one of those webs that hang like a hammock. Anyway, as I looked at the web I saw a small beetle climbing up the edge of the window frame, as it passed the web it brushed it, and then actually started walking on it. You're a goner mate. I thought. Soon enough the spider scuttled out towards the beetle. It came as some surprise I can tell you, when just in time the beetle managed to evade capture by the spider by flying off. For a micro-second I smiled to myself at the beetles daring, last-minute, escape. But I was premature in my belief that the little fellow had performed a death-defying exit, because for some reason (perhaps a stray piece of web, obstructing the escape route) the beetle ended upside down, desperately tangled deep in the web. The spider didn't realise at first but soon found the hapless beetle and began to munch away. I felt a little sad, but such is life I told myself, as I went to put my dentures in.

All this daydreaming meant that I didn't have my ticket ready when I got to the ticket barriers and had to spend a few moments rifling through my pockets. People barged past me, but I continued hunting - through all five of my pockets, bringing out everything from boiled sweets to handfuls of shrapnel and faded till receipts. The piggy-eyed hippy woman from earlier certainly made sure she gave me a good nudge with her shoulder as she passed, shooting me a thin little smile (harpy!). As I stood there I heard the guard manning the ticket barrier calling "Madam., can you come back here? I didn't see who too, though I hoped it was that abhorrent woman, but no-one came back anyway.

I finally located my ticket and approached the ticket barriers. I do hate the things. They remind me of horse racing stalls, and people seem to approach them in the same way as a thoroughbred derby-winner, racing to get through them before everyone else as quickly as possible. I put my ticket in the slot and moved forward, the gates beeped and opened and my ticket popped out the top of the barrier. So far so good. Not too many problems there I thought to. I had congratulated myself too soon though, for a tall Asian man barged past me from behind, causing me to drop my walking stick on the floor. He sailed off like an Arabian pirate ship, a pillar of black, on the high seas of East Croydon station not even looking back as I tried to bend over to pick the blessed cane up. Damn foreigners, so rude.

Thankfully, one of the station staff came to help me, an inbred looking girl with cheese-yellow hair. "Thank you my dear. Oh thank you so much. The back's not what it used to be I said to the girl as she passed me my cane, a blank expression on her face. She grunted something and strode off. Charming young lady, I thought to myself.

I now set my sights on leaving the station entrance hall as quickly as possible. The place was as hot and noisy as Pandemonium. Of course getting out as quickly as I would have liked was never going to have been easy, especially at this time in the morning, with travellers standing round like corpses, their mouths ajar and agape, fumbling with tickets and looking at the departures. A Sikh family lumbered by on one side with a collection of children, suitcases and elderly relatives, while in front of me a girl in a pink velour tracksuit squawked "Ow? Her boyfriend (I assume he was such), a brutish fellow in a red vest and baseball cap replied, "Don't worry, I'll let 'err Know? Who knows what they were talking about; the price of cheap smack on the internet, if the papers are to be believed. I sighed as I passed them, the girl looking angrily (or I suppose it could have just been the natural arrangement of her features) as I brushed past her.

Things were a little calmer outside the station but the streets were still throbbing, as the morning rush hour came to its end. The tall and fat, skinny and short all ducked and weaved around each other outside the train station. It vaguely reminded me of a documentary I saw the night before on BBC on the mating dances of flamingos, only less appealing. People were going there different ways; to work I guessed. Maybe some were off on day trips, or to visit friends and relatives, each caught up in the intricacies and quirks of their individual lives.

As I walked past the cash machines outside the station, and down towards the zebra crossing, a group of black girls in towelling tracksuits cackled huskily to each other. I wondered if I was the butt of their joke, but decided that in their eyes I was probably beneath such contempt so carried on my way, carefully avoiding a dropped strawberry ice cream cone, which melted into the grooves between the paving stones like some congealed, pink bodily fluid.

As I approached the crossing I silently cursed to myself; the green man had started to flash and by the time I'd reached the crossing he'd been replaced by the rather sterner red man. I must say I've always felt that the red man looks slightly awkward, I think it's the way he holds his arms. Not that the appearance of the red man seemed to stop anyone else apart from myself. Other people still rushed out across the road for sometime, totally oblivious to a number Forty-Six bus waiting to continue its journey. All this continued for a good ten seconds before the bus driver finally lost patience, put the bus into gear and pulled out.

Just then though, a man just ran, straight into the middle of the road. He was just inches from the front of the accelerating bus, there was no way he could clear the road in time. This is going to be good I told myself. Though I wasn't entirely sure exactly how this would end. Maybe the chap would crack the buses windscreen and bounce to the side of the road; maybe he'd simply slide under the matt grey grille at the front of the bus and slide underneath into oblivion. I suppose it was even possible, if the bus was going fast enough, that maybe he'd just end up exploding in a shower of limbs and guts.

You'll never believe it though, and I still can't quite work out how it happened, but the man missed the front of the bus by a fraction of an inch. I found the whole event utterly incredible; the whole thing seemed to contravene the laws of physics. Two objects travelling at right angles to each other, in the same time, the same space and they missed each other. Two objects on a collision course, and by some quirk, some shudder in reality (or so it seemed to me) they missed.

And the day went on as if nothing had happened. The man kept running across the road like nothing had happened. He ran straight past me. The bus too carried on regardless. Nonchalant and red. Only I was left dazed, my mouth agape. It was just a normal empty road on a normal Monday morning. There was no death here, no blood, no disruption to the everyday monotony of chaotic interactions by hundreds of different people. The world carried on regardless.