A Point in Time Courtney Chilvers 12:00. Midday. It would be more dramatic if it was midnight, wouldn’t it? I’m sorry; I don’t make the rules. We’re in an underground station in 1988 - no, I’m joking, we’re still present day. If we weren’t present day, it wouldn’t be half as busy as it is now. Now. Look now. You can’t look away. It’s an underground station at midday. Not rush hour - would be better, wouldn’t it? But I don’t make the rules. Either way, people everywhere, you can’t look away. Each person follows their own separate course of their own separate lives and they each cross a path, a point in time, once. We all share this moment that we are not sharing, in this midday that we do not care for. Because nobody wants to be in an underground station at 12:00, midday. Men talk on the phones, and women hold children’s hands - no, that’s sexist, let’s start again - women talk on the phones, and men hold children’s hands - but that’s too feminist. The truth is it’s both. It’s every culture, every genre, little and large, all walking in a thousand different directions, but all following the same route of never being seen by each other again. It’s black and white, Christian and Muslim - and atheist - dumb and bright, straight and gay, rich and poor - and everything else I forgot to mention so that this list remains PC.
It’s London.
Give it a wave. Hello!!!! Don’t draw too much attention; this is London, I just told you that. But don’t look too suspicious, or they’ll think you’re something you’re not. That’s the paranoia, anyhow. The paranoia that people from around here do not share. This paranoia, coloured purple, lifting its head through every tunnel the train trolls under, that somebody everybody nobody - yes, everybody - is out to get you, and you them. But your lives will each cross a path, a point in time, once. And then time makes you forget all about it. We’re standing on the platform of station Liverpool Street. It’s not tidy, but it’s neat; everyone knows what they’re doing. Supposedly. In actual fact, nobody knows where they’re going, but we all funnel in the same direction of a million different directions to prove to one another that we do. Even though we will never meet again, so what’s the point?
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