I turned at the quieter Simsons Lane and fixed my eyes on the pavement because it was all making me sick. Mrs. Mack caught up and walked by my side.
“Do you want to get anything before you go?” she chirped.
“Like what?”
“A sandwhich? Juice, books, a magazine?”
“No thanks.” My eyes kept following the pavement. “How long does it take to get there?”
“Oh, not too long. About four or five hours.”
We emerged across the road from Windsor Park, the grass beyond the concrete paths was a mucky brown sludge. I remembered reading a book by Roald Dahl once, that described the way the businessmen walk in London- their noses up in the air, backs straight, arms swinging in exaggerated fashion, looking important with their briefcases at their side, walking with an urgent pace whilst their bodies screamed, “LOOK AT ME. THIS IS IMPORTANT. MY JOB IS IMPORTANT. DON’T YOU KNOW I HAVE SOMEWHERE TO BE?!”
And over the road at the park that was actually the way half of them were walking. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so depressing.
“Where you going?” Mrs. Mack called from behind me. I turned around and realized I had walked right past her Skoda. I went back and climbed into the passenger’s side and threw my backpack into the back.
She opened her own door and shuffled into the driver’s seat, slouching her stooped, frail body over the wheel.
She put her seatbelt on, then lingered a moment, just sitting there. Then she turned her head and smiled warmly at me. “Okay?” she said.
I smiled back nervously.
“Okay.”
She turned the key in the ignition and pulled out onto the road.
Chapter 2
W e kept stopping and starting every thirty seconds behind the other cars in the queues and at the traffic lights. Horns were blasting everywhere as people raced across the road and darted in front of the moving cars. More people stormed about the pavements in mass stampedes, they came seeping out from the side streets, pouring out of the alleys. It was chaos. I just couldn’t understand it. What the hell do they pack themselves together like this for? Is the world not big enough? Cramming themselves into congested masses. Scurrying about like rats. Nobody stopping to look around. To look at each other. What does it mean? What do they see in it?
I sat and watched my fellow species from the car, loathing every one of them. On their way back from lunch the office workers’ faces were like portraits of despair, their lifeless eyes fixed on their shoes, their strides monotonous and mechanical -it was like their boss had wound them up in the morning and unwound them back again at night. Did they even know where they were?
So this is it, then? You’re born, you go to school, you grow up, you get a job, somewhere like here where you’re someone’s clone and you do as you’re told, where you’re not even human, you save up, you buy a house and get a mortgage, you pay off that mortgage after twenty-five years, you retire once you’ve paid it off, and then you die. But before you die, you have kids, so that they can do it all over again.
The car drew up beside Piccadilly Circus and halted at the red lights. The tourists stood in droves outside the extravagant buildings, snapping at everything and anything in sight. It was the only difference I could establish between here and Glasgow- the tourists. The buildings all looked the same to me. Both cities stood like the imperial hubs they were, with their fancy grandiose architecture built on the backs of slaves and exploitation. They both had the same shit-colored rivers running through them, modern buildings and bright lights fraying the sides. I didn’t see any difference.
The light turned green and we drove past the glass office buildings that you could see right through to all the proletariats sat inside, all stooped over, staring blankly at the computer screens. We passed the rows and rows of brand-new four-storey flats in the immaculately clean streets, each one smart and shiny and looking exactly the same as the next. Past the orange brick buildings that hid little box rooms inside, filled with matchstick men living in their own personal chicken coup in the big city. Everything was organized and sanitized and doctored and running like clockwork. Individual men came and went out of the little doors. It was grotesque. Was this really it? Was this really life? It was a horror film playing before my eyes.
I turned my attention to the radio, twisted the dial to turn it on and flicked through the channels till it came to a half-decent rock station. The last notes of a song died away. They were playing more adverts, selling paint this time. I sat back in my chair, watching on as the modern world whizzed by in a blur. Suddenly a distinctive guitar riff alerted my senses. The drum pounded and the bass drove in, a voice roared-
“Restless Soooouuul!
Enjoy your youth!
Like Muhammad,
hits the truth.
Can’t escape from,
the common rule,
If you hate something,
Don’t you do it too!!”
I leaned back against the headrest and squeezed my eyes shut. It was like the singer was talking straight to my soul, -
“Small my table,
sits just two.
Got so crowded,
I can’t make room!!”
The warmth of empathy came all over me and I felt slightly better all of a sudden, that uplifting feeling when your thoughts are echoed by someone else and you know you’re not wrong- you’re not the only one. There are others who
