by Katie McCullough

No one cared for the £200 shoes you huffed at when someone accidentally stood on your foot (to be fair to them you did stretch them the distance). Everyone didn’t notice the over priced wallet you so readily displayed to put your ticket away. The fact that you forgot you’d need it to exit the station went in your favour as you opened it up again. Once more for the people at the back. Your briefcase accentuated that you should be important but I know that all you held in it were yesterday’s papers and a chewed up biro. You were the man who refused to look at the bulging pregnant woman carrying her shopping; I was the one who sprang to my feet to accommodate. You were the one who lost themselves in the fabric of your overcoat picking off specks of dust as if they were disciples of the devil. I was the one who placed my chewing gum delicately in your silk-lined pocket. Pushing against you for good measure ‘accidentally’. I was also the one who smiled sweetly and apologised.

(Surely that should have been a dead giveaway; no-one talks on the tube let alone apologises.)

Smiling subtly, I realise I have the gaze of at least six people close to me. At first I thought the old lady was intent on blowing my cover. Nope. Instead she gave me a frail thumbs up and the carriage erupted in laughter. Upon hearing this wave the arrogant man cast his eye our way and the noise quelled. The smiles of those six people only added to the bathos of this arrogant being who had forgotten to take the label off his tie. To the arrogant man who tutted all the way to Tooting Bec; this is to let you know I chewed all the way to Charing Cross.

Katie McCullough is a playwright and screenwriter from Hertfordshire who’s always looking for a gin and tonic. She will ramble at you given half the chance.