5pm

Its not too cold and I'm glad for that. The station is draughty at the best of times, I set down and get out my minidisc. It's about armour y'see, you have to wear your armour. The walkman is a shield, the book chainmail, can't let the world in. Furtively, I fumble in my bag, trying to retrieve the player and its cargo while not showing people what's in there. You can't let them see, who knows which of them is the thief, ready to maim and traumatise for the sake of a walkman to sell in a pub. I look around, the platform is busy, but not too bad, two men in identical raincoats are talking, may be about robbing me, who knows?

The Smiths protect me, the jangle of guitars and Morrissy's pungent whine shelter me from the workings of daily life. And the train arrives.

I step on and find my seat. The man beside me has spread his coat over the seat. He guards his fiefdom with clothing, knowing that the desire not to talk to him is as strong as his desire for space. I sit down anyway, grudgingly he moves the coat. My thoughts turn once again to protection, the music is Ok, but there's too much eye contact, I need to blend in. One wrong move and they'll know I'm not one of them, they'll know that the town for me is an occasional trip not a lifestyle, I have to appear as though I know the rules. I remove my book from my bag, I'm trying to keep the bag close (you never know where the robbers are) but at the same time trying not to enter into a protective hunch.

I dive into the book, hoping that the dense text will deflect any unwanted, dangerous eye contact, and for the moment I feel safe.

From the corner of my eye, I see the sidelong glances of the man next to me. The tinny hum from my headphones is sure to be upsetting him. This is OK with me,it never hurts to go on the offensive a little. Maybe he'll get off one stop earlier or move seats to avoid the snicks and tingles of my headphones. Either way, I feel a slow creeping satisfaction knowing that I have the upper hand here, normally I would feel guilty, but this is a war.

I notice that people are beginning to pull out mobile phones and know that we are approaching our destination. I ready mine, careful not to let anyone see, as this means dropping my guard at a vital moment. I must make this as quick as possible. I find myself slipping into phone speak, no
superfluous information, position, expected time at destination, meeting point.

No 'how was your day', 'no what shall we do later', conversation is dangerous, keeping me in view for longer. I need to talk quickly and get back below the radar.

The call finishes and I'm back in my shell, its too crowded to risk putting the minidisc back on, I must do without for the moment.

I'm standing in a Verve video, still in the huge hall, trains passing, watching drops fall slowly from the roof, the current of people ebbing and flowing round me, a rock in their foaming stream. I must move, get back in their, become unnoticed again.

Looking around, it strikes me that this is the city, not flashing neon and Tower records, but cavernous train stations, dripping celings, and serried ranks of bicycles chained to railings. This is the bright lights that people dream of, an empty promise, a thousand people and noone to talk to.

The tubes are crowded, I feel bad, standing, with my bag, but it provides vital breathing room. I have eschewed the minidisc now, it makes me too different, a target, anything that makes me visible is a danger to me. The signs warn me to watch my wallet, I do so, keeping a watchful hand, mindful that a moments lapse could see me discarded, money less, no identity and no means of contact in a strange city. I keep my hand close round it, but it doesn't comfort me.

Swimming out of the tube station, diving through eddies of commuters I race for the surface. Joy surges through me as the warm rush of tube air is replaced by sharp cold and the sounds of the surface. Breaking through I am almost gasping, glad to find space and movement. I find none.

I stand outside waiting to be met and watch as the crowd churns and boils around me, a living animal sinous and slippery. It oils to and fro around me, excreting litter and mobile phone emissions. The street traders are parasitic, moving close to the beast and suckling, drawing off nourishment and leaving a residue of discarded leaflets and unwanted flyers.

I realise now, I'm angry. I feel a rage borne of xenophobia, of fear building in my stomach, the longer I wait, the more repulsed I become by the seething lifeform in front of me. Now, the fear has gone, replaced by a shiny hate of the world around me, a million people, unaware of any existence other than their own, and equally unaware of their small part in the animal. Cells, dividing, merging, moving together, unconscious yet with horrible purpose. A desperate pride fills me up, arrogant in the knowledge that although they are unaware of me, I am acutely aware of them. The thought of being like that, so out of touch with your surroundings, so insulated is abhorrent, the crux for me is that this is studied.

They train themselves not to notice, a man on the tube begs for money, I can see in his face that his pride has not been diminished, I can see that he hates begging, I can see that it pains him to have to ask, and I know that he can hear the desperation in his own voice. I imagine myself as him, praying for the eyes to raise from the floor or the newspaper and looking for a flash of acknowledgement in someone's eyes. I imagine how wretched I would feel having to beg for money and hearing myself plead, living off pity and guilt of people too busy to really care. I know all this, and I look at the floor.

I make the excuses to myself, that I've got no change, that it means giving him a ten pound note, but ultimatly I don't want to be bothered, and so I look at the floor.

He doesn't look different, he's bearded and his clothes are dirty, but he's not a bundle of clothes outside a tube station or in a doorway. I look at the floor. If I stare at the floor hard enough, then he'll go away, I'm praying that he doesn't walk down the carriage and ask me. The thought of looking away from his face terrifies me. He leaves at the next stop. I look up again expecting to see the relief I feel, written on the face of fellow travellers, they remain unfettered. I realise with horror that they didn't see or hear him. He didn't even register to a consciousness too used to seeing beggers, the homeless. I despise myself as I realise that by looking away, saving myself that ten pounds, I took a step towards becoming one of them.

The city is an organism, made up of pulsing commuters throbbing through its veins, excreting exhaust fumes, talking in a thousand disparate voices. The city is a virus. I have been here less than a day and already I mould myself to its conventions. Self preservation and paranoia have shaped me, removing self becoming part of the collective and all the time ignorant. This thought comforts me in a strange way, it removes my responsibility, how can I be blamed for acting like this when my actions merely mirror those around me.

Walking out of the tube station I look around. If Oxford St was the heart of things, this is surely some long redundant limb or organ. Cars flow up and down the roads, carrying their cargo to and fro but none stop. The streets are empty, random shop windows casting carnival haze onto the pavement. The skyline is torn by a lone church spire and, in the distance, the faint glow of the heart is visible, the light leeches into the sky but not to here. The vehicles move like automatons, stop, start, twitching and yet, there is still that bizarre sense of common purpose. Over it all, two huge gasomaters stand, sentinels of the city night.

The station is empty when I return, scattered commuters upset the symmetry of cold marble and wrought iron. I stare at the destination boards, the fear and the rage long passed. I adapt quickly you see, already this is the way it is, and the way it should be. My goal is to find my train, secure a seat and defend that seat but any means necessary - other than conversation. I am confident, alone and content.

Could I despise myself more at this moment? I see myself hardened, scarred by the city, realising now that as you pass through its digestive tract, it dissolves you, removes your self. I have become what I viewed so contemptuously a few hours ago, immune to the presence of others, innured to the horrors of metropolitan life and part of them. I realise now that although I know there are people all around me , I don't feel them. The company of others is something I normally seek, it comforts me, here, I am awash in a sea of people and not even getting wet.

I stare blankly at the departure board, searching for my train. I know why I do this, I want to get there first, to get a seat and defend it with subtle silence. I'd felt a kind of pity at the commuters I saw on the way in, the way in which they noticed only the threat I posed to them, while I felt hyper-aware of my surroundings. If they could see me now, and, even if I were standing next to them, I doubt they could, their faces might show a wry grin.

I'd always assumed that the people I saw were somehow different from birth, born to be city traders and gents in bowlers, a little extra DNA or rogue gene that gave them the mindset necessary for life in the smoke. That was wrong. They were humans at first, sucked in, unknowing to this boiling, living abyss, chewed up, but never spat out.

The contempt passes briefly to fear, that I may never change back, and then finally on back to a colder self loathing, that I had been such an easy mark. So scared by a ethereal thief, that I missed the real threat, the city itself, and, in doing so, that I became what disgusted me so smoothly.

I cast a glimpse above the bright boards, into the rafters of the station, I expect to see arches, girders, pigeons. I see darkness.