Misanthropia

Oscar pushed through the crowd of people that were assembled outside the station entrance, with water trickling down his face. From his nose, was a single water drop. As he sauntered down the dirty steps into the station, he heard a voice from behind say “Big Issue?” Oscar turned to see who was interrupting his trail of thought. He was faced with an unshaved man, with a rucksack at his feet, who stood clutching a collection of magazines. Oscar carried on:

“I hate saying no to him every morning. He should just get the hint” he mumbled to himself and he rushed to an unclean blue door with a male silhouette on it.

Moments later, he pushed through the door with dripping hands and his face screwed up from the acrid scent that followed him out. ‘I hate morning sickness’ he thinks to himself. ‘Whenever I want to use my own bathroom, she’s always in there with her head down the bog’. An exasperated sigh exits his mouth as the thought of ‘someone has to earn the money!’ rings through his head.

Another large crowd of people are surrounding the way onto the escalators, to which Oscar joins the back of. The mob slowly filters onto the single escalator, much like sheep being herded through a gate, with a man in a florescent jacket taking the role of sheep dog.

Oscar eventually makes his way through the horde and steps onto the escalator. In the corner of his eye, as he was taking the escalator down into hell, he saw the grinning, made-up and posed faces of people advertising west-end shows, just like windows in which you can see trapped souls through. A bright red coat then strides past, giving Oscar a handbag, which felt like it had a brick enclosed, to the back of his head.

Just as he reaches off the steps and onto solid ground, he hears his train pulling up in the station. He stops his slow mooch, and starts to jog, whilst fiddling around in his pocket, trying to squeeze his wallet out. He stops at the metallic stump in the ground and takes out his Oyster Card. Just as he pings himself in, he turns and sees the doors close and the Underground train begins to speed away.

“Damn!” cries out Oscar as he chucks his wallet on the floor, before quickly jumping towards it to pick up, and look around to see whether anyone saw him do so. He then looks above his head and reads the orange digital display. The next train is in 9 minutes. He lets out a loud sigh of annoyance and plonks himself down on a red sheet of moulded metal, which is supposedly a bench.

The time passes and a swarm of skittles slowly arrive to stand emotionlessly on the platform. A breeze then flows around the platform and the distant sound of clattering is echoing. Oscar stands up just as a train hustles to the platform. The doors scream open and people start to pour out of every door, just like blood pouring from a punctured vain.

Oscar begins to squeeze himself onto the tube train, determined to get on this one to avoid waiting another ten minutes for the next. He begins to hang inside the carriage by clinging onto a pole, almost like he is on the ledge of a tall building. A loud beeping surrounds the carriage, before the doors slide shut. As they do so, Oscar’s head is rudely slapped into the carriage with a jolt. He glances into the crowd for few moments, before shaking his head and looking around to see the reactions of his fellow passengers.

‘Has no-one got a sense of humour?’ Oscar thinks to himself as he see’s not even one person smirking. He continues to be bemused, whilst starring at the naked bicep which is next to his head and is in danger of squashing his skull. He then looks around the carriage at all the people. Everyone is swaying in sync, just as if they were in a slow motion moshpit. The train then draws to an abrupt halt, and a crowd of people try to escape, whilst a similarly-sized crowd begin to try and wedge themselves on at the same time.

Oscar is now stuck in the middle of a scrum of people. He begins to consider just how much he hates people, as he begins to judgingly look around the sardined people. As his eyes wonder, he notices a man stood opposite him who is talking on his phone via headphones. The man is staring at him blankly. He looks like a demonised child, just agreeing to whatever the person on the phone is saying. A large bag on the man’s back grabs Oscar attention. ‘Maybe he has a bomb in that bag’ thinks Oscar, just as the train grinds to another abrupt halt. The man on the phone gets off, still chatting and Oscar breathes a sigh of a relief. The owner of the bicep next to his face looks down at him and scowled.

Before the train speeds off again, a French woman gets on with a dog. She sits down with the dog sitting loyally at her feet, just as Oscar feels a weight land on his black, polished shoe. Oscar just stares down at the black Labrador and begins to considerer kicking the dog. He then decides to just grin and bear it, but says internally to himself: ‘I hope this mutt doesn’t poo on my shoes’.

The train grinds of an abrupt stop. The dog topples over, and a grin consumes Oscar’s face momentarily. The Labrador quickly regains his balance and returns to resting his head on his owner’s knee, while the old woman next to her rubs his head and reassuringly smiles at the French lady. A man clutching a tissue then gets on and stands right behind him, while the man with the large bicep gets off. The train then pulls away, and everyone wobbles for a second.

All that Oscar can now hear is the constant sniffing from behind, which was often followed by coughs; all of which go down the neck of Oscar. He keeps sniffing and coughing. As the man finally puts his tissue to his nose and blows, Oscar feels the air rush down is back. The man puts the tissue back in his pocket, and then puts his hand on the chilled yellow pole, with black marker-pen scrawling on, next to Oscar’s hand. Oscar stares at the hand, thinking about all the germs that hand has on it. ‘I haven’t had a cold for months. I don’t want a cold. I hate having colds. This is why I hate people. They have colds and they give them to me’ goes through the mind of Oscar.

Then, without the hand being moved from the pole, a large, sudden sneeze rings in the ears of Oscar. His face turns to bright red.

“Are you some kind of brain-dead mongrel?” Oscar mumbles under his breath as he turns to look at the man with a bright red nose and water streaming from his eyes. As the carriage begins to wobble, Oscar takes the opportunity to shove his elbow in the stomach of the man behind, just as the train comes to slow arrest. As a huge crowd of people escape from the carriage and seats become available, Oscar moves along and sits in an uncomfortably warm seat.

Oscar’s eyes then catch a waddling woman who gets on. He immediately notices her eyes are the colour of grass on a warm, sunny day. She struggles towards him, with one hand carrying some shopping bags, and the other clutching the large bump under her yellow jumper. The woman then lowers herself carefully into the seat opposite, as her bracelet rattles against the pole she is sat next to.

Motionless, Oscar just stares into the eyes of the woman, and watching the discomfort expressed on her face, as her hands rest on the protruding bump. She begins to gently and slowly rub in a soothing, circular motion and looks down, just as a smile fills her face; lighting up her eyes. Deaf to the music loudly playing from the phone of the girl next to him; Oscar is almost hypnotised by the movement of the woman’s hands, and instead can hear tender rough sound of skin against wool.

Still staring straight ahead, Oscar moves his hand into his pocket and then removes it, holding a phone. He looks down and begins tapping and scrolling across the dimly lit, scuffed screen on his phone. He presses the phone symbol next the name ‘Susanna’. Up pops the crushing dialogue box.

“Of course, no network coverage” he articulates quietly, before scoffing, and trousering his phone. The train draws to a slow stop and the woman ahead of him grips hold of the pole next to her and begins to struggle. Oscar leans forward and holds her other hand which is clutching a white plastic bag:

“Need a hand?”