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? 82

Look, there’s another father with his child. And a man with a briefcase. A hiker, a group of tourists - they don’t speak English, but they are different from the group of people down the platform who live here, even though they share the same heritage. There’s a dropped pamphlet for the London Eye, someone with a bike helmet, a couple saying goodbye, as if their paths will never cross again at any point in time. That woman walking up the stairs, adjusting the clothes that fit her tight. She pushes a child out of her way as she climbs the escalator, because they didn’t read the sign to stand on the right.

Those teenagers coming off the train as it pulls in, the wind from no particular direction and the busker… Wait, no. Those teenagers. Those are the ones we have been waiting for. They are the ones the story centres around. We like them. Focus on them. Zoom into them. Are you crazy? Don’t go talking to them! Do you want to change the plot of the entire story? Because I haven’t got time to go through rewriting this all over again. Watch them from afar - like a stalker - you can easily become invisible with a place running with bright colours - it’s London.

But they’re running. The doors barely opened before she saw her exit and broke for it. She holds his hand. One of them is called Kit, the other named Ashley. I couldn’t tell you who was who; that’s a minor detail you can decide for yourself.

She runs adjacent to the crowd, he trips up and nearly falls down as she pushes through the thick of it. She’s a little girl - grown into a woman - but she’s stronger than the men on phones, women with children, women on phones and men with children. The man with the cycle helmet gets on the tube she got off - but focus on them or you’ll miss ‘em. This girl is different. She does not follow the crowd, but her direction stands out, meaning that even though she is as scattered as the million different lives, her moves will form an impression that lasts on the witnesses’ brains through time.

He is less noticeable, except for his bright ginger hair. But hers still manages to drown his out, purple streaked with blue and yellows and pinks and blue again. It could be anybody in this grey black white crowd, but someone is following them. We don’t know who. Then, our heroes - or maybe they’re the antagonists; I haven’t quite decided yet and, probably, neither have you - run down the corridor, wind blowing in their hair, although nobody knows quite where from what wind comes. It just seems to appear, as they did. They run up the right side of the escalator - by that, I mean the left - Kit looks behind once. Their stalker - no, not you - is behind them. Kit looks behind a second time and keeps walking, jogging, running.

At the top of the tunnel, the girl turns right and follows the maze of everyone the same until she comes out the other side. At the little gates. She scans a contactless card, which acts as an Oyster card, and the gates open. She sneaks the boy through with her. 83

Nobody notices but the one watching them. And me. And you. Knowing you, you won’t have anything to get through these barriers, so you’ll have to pull the same trick they did. Latch on to somebody else. But don’t let anyone see you, or they’ll be after you and that will change the whole plot of the story - and I already said I’m not rewriting it.

Why are you being so slow? Hurry up! Look, they’ve gone now. Into the daylight. Their stalker has followed them, although we don’t know who he is - except now you know his gender, or maybe I’m just being sexist and assuming again. Mind you, people now identify as a range of 52, so there’s really no telling at all who anybody really is.

It’s London. You’ll never catch them now. Walk back downstairs, go back to that platform and I’ll loop the story back round. This time, try to catch them.

It’s 12:03, but it’s now once again midday.