The man on the tube

So, there we were, rattling northwards on the rollercoaster line, aka Victoria, when a man appeared at the window. Not the windows that look on to the platform. No, the windows, the slits you may say, between the two carriages, where only the brave and the beggars dare walk.

I looked at him: his hair was long, unkempt, and it was flying madly around in the air that whooshed between the carriages. When we skidded to a brief halt at Green Park it became clear that he was drunk. Plastered. Hammered. The blasting air must have been cooling his alcohol-addled brain.

He drooled too. Twice. Long hanging trails of saliva falling downwards on to the tracks.
Every time we set off his hair would shoot out, leaving his carriage, entering ours, as it flailed madly in the air tunnels of the tube.

Then, at each stop, the slowing movement of the train saw his hair slowly return to its natural position of stuck firmly to his head, and then he’d opened his eyes, stare around with an inane grin on his face, checking where we were.

And it was Sunday night too, so I guess he had no job.