Mind the Gap

Bloody trains.

Mind the gap. Mind the gap. Mind the gap.

It's only something you can hear every so often several times a day without it making the idea of a train a disgustingly repetitive way to live a life. Monday is where she hears him for the first time. Of course for this commuter this monotone chap, so proud of his gap and so declared in his attendance of his pathetically late trains, was her only real company for most of her days. Goodness, how that man loved telling everyone to mind this supposed gap. Her innocence wasn't ruined enough to potentially take this any worse than it should be considered. The joke, she thought, was truly on him as there wasn't even that big of a gap. Ha! Declaring such an instruction towards these pitiful fools spending upwards of a tuppence on these overpriced drinks whilst she sipped on her lukewarm coffee and read the latest crossword without a degree of irony. It was a tough crossword, mind you. She pondered how she missed 5 across for so long - 6 letters, a type of cake - before confidently scribbling 'Jafffa' down. Yes, this simple commuter lived a very quiet life in this little city, it's called London you know, travelling day in day out for almost 4 years now. A simple life for some, but not for her obviously.

Mind the gap. Mind the gap. Mind the gap.

Rainy Tuesday. Today, she thought, was one of those days where perhaps one train may leave a little bit early before the allocated time. Oh, how to go against modern capitalism in such a way by fighting back at the TFL overlords by sending a mere train from station to station 1 minute before it was truly, ultimately ready to depart onto ventures new wherever that may be. Of course, she had not considered that these ventures would happen to be the same next destination in the route that it was on the early train, and the one before that, and funnily enough before that too. She barely even pondered the idea that it is slightly impossible to break free of the underground structure. In the grand scheme of things, it did not matter. That's far too sensible thinking for this wild beast of a mind. She knew that train was free and onto a whole new adventure now. Incidentally, she had realised her error in her spelling mistake in yesterday's crossword. Lucky for her she still had it - with a brief smile it was soon corrected. Phew. She smirked in overriding confidence at her amendment to 'Jaffaa'.

Mind the gap. Mind the gap. Mind the gap.

Surprisingly optimistic Wednesday brought an unexpected bout of energy and resurgence in life in what had already been a bit of a mental trek for her. Perhaps there needs to be more WH Smith's, she pondered, down on the platform! Oh, a place to grab a quick bottle and pick up the latest Closer. Maybe my own! Imagine all I could do in my own WH Smith! Perhaps I could make it my own shop. My own train stati-sorry, this seat is taken. Yes, it's for my bag. Sorry. -station shop. Maybe that's my goal!. She was an ambitious one this one. In her days of expecting the odd person to walk into her here, there and just about everywhere in these claustrophobic tunnels, she'd pondered how she'd shake up this quiet little life of hers. Perhaps she could get a sexier voice to inform the reminder of the gap she knew so much about. The poor chap had clearly been bored senseless warning us not to fall over into the gap he protects so dearly. I bet he has glasses, she mused. He sounds like he'd have glasses. Oh, such magnanimous ideas indeed. Incidentally, today's crossword was far too difficult. The secret word was a band you'd find in a 90's desert, whatever that meant.

Mind the gap. Mind the gap. Mind the gap.

Terrible Thursday. The drabbest of all the days, the terriblest of all the terribles. Ingesting the smell of her overly milked coffee, she chuckled within at the idea of renaming Thursday to the popular musical Les Miserables Day, incidentally not because of her interest in musicals, but instead because of the attendant who had earlier stopped her, an impatient oaf with the name tag of Lesley. What made this attendant such a joy to behold though was her clear true dislike of trains and all that encompasses journeys involved within the capacity of rail-based electrical transport. A job's a job, as she so often told herself, and a job she'd getting paid to do with relative ease. That said, this mere scuffle over the barrier's refusal to open provided little distraction from the continually cryptic crosswords and their nonsense gabble. No, she was happy to place her plumpy bottom in her plumpy seat seat in this little plumpy Underground adventure. Despite yesterday's optimism, she could never put herself in the role of these brave attendants. No, this attendant idea would cross the line in a literal and metaphorical sense. The world is not to be messed with like that. After all, the gap was there to be minded.

Mind the gap. Mind the gap. Mind the gap.

And so Friday found it's way into the normal weekly cycle of days, as it turns out Friday tends to follow Thursday and arrives before Saturday in the normal route of how days work. As someone who never worked weekends, it very much came as stress relief for this commuter. It's a hard life scanning your Oyster card and thinking irrelevant thoughts, listening to a man mention his gap and prepare for the swoosh of a train no later than it'll ever want to arrive. Yes, it'd been a long week for her indeed. As she awaited the end of her final day of work for this week, upon her arrival back at the underground station she looked up at the arrivals and departures and smirked with a cheeky rise of the corner of her lips as she heard the gap warning for the last time till Monday. It was fine, she knew that once that bottle of wine she'd been holding off all week was down her she wouldn't even know where the gaps were. To the weekend, she thought. To the weekend indeed.

Mind the gap. Mind the gap. Mind the gap.

Oh, a band in the desert! she thought to herself as she reached her front door. Of course!

Blur!