observations from the tube looking out onto baker street platform
A tiny narrative from the real world
A mother and daughter sit beneath one of the brick arches on Baker Street platform, the ones that rise up to the ceiling and make real the Victorian past in each tiny yellowed brick. The daughter: dark hair, jeans, faux leather jacket, pushes her hands through her mother's hair. The mother: light blonde slipping into grey, stylish in a cream jacket over a blue shirt, leans into her daughter’s hands as they sweep through her hair. Two large suitcases sit at their feet. The daughter continues to muss her mother’s hair, flicks at her fringe, tucks a strand behind her ear. The mother smiles and takes a sip of her coffee. They both turn together to look down the platform for an oncoming train. Their lips move but I cannot hear what they are saying, not through the glass of the tube window from where I’m sat, all the way on the other side of the platform. Instead, I take out my phone and make a note: what they are wearing, the way the daughter’s hand moves so tenderly through her mother’s hair, the familial ease of it. I want a record of the small snapshot of their life that I can see. And then without warning the tube gives a jolt and leaves the station. My life slips past their life and they are gone. Or rather, they remain and I am the one who moved.
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