Another world

Low pressure, high pressure... passing between the two feels like pushing through a doorway between dimensions.

The wind rushed up the escelator as I descended to the subway platform. Subways are always a strange place to visit. An entirely different dimension with a completely different feel. The world could end while you were down here and you wouldn't know until the police stopped you from exiting.

It's dank and unappealing but there's an entirely different eco-system down there. The overworlders drop their waste into the waiting tins of the scruffy looking natives, providing nourishment and warmth so that they can continue... they don't thrive but they continue. I take a seat and watch life cycling around me.

Aloof executives give off an intellectual air, reading the business and opinions sections of their chosen broadsheet. They nod at the conservative and seethe at the liberal opinions, oblivious to the reality of the world that surrouns them. They're narrow picture people and a panoramic world. All that exists to them is this platform and they're not even seeing all of that.

See, over there... at the top of the platform, there's a girl in a short skirt and a torn glitter top. She's heading home, while the others are heading out to work, and she hopes that this weeks pay will be enough to cover the rent... if she's lucky there might even be enough to buy something more than Weetbix as well.

A kid sits in the corner, using the wireless access point to play WoW, nothing else to do because no-one will hire him... he's given up trying so he's not technically unemployed. His mother thinks, at least he's out of the house, but she doesn't know where he is. Maybe he'll make something of himself one day, but not years yet.

Rail staff patrol the platform like some sort of mythical guardian of a great secret.

The hooker smiles at me and turns away, the glint in her eye not a happy one. She hides her sadness well, I don't really notice.

She didn't want her life to be this way, she just kind of fell into the situation. Maybe she left home to find a better life, or to prove something, or maybe she just didn't have anyone. However it happened it's just a distant memory now, a memory like her innocence. She tried to find "honest" work, but there just wasn't any for a girl like her.

Maybe they're all trying to find something... something better, but something that they can't hold onto. Maybe they had it once but something made them loose it, and they just couldn't find their way back. Maybe... but who knows?