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metrocentricAn elderly woman swoops aboard the 37 at 07:15, at Zemo Alekseevka, chattering to the captive audience in Russian. A TTC employee has been conducting passengers to the machine to pay their fares, but this new addition is unconductable. She moves with vigour, up and down the aisle, a constant patter. She addresses us by turns collectively and individually. She's not passing a hat around, she may not be in her right mind, but her objective seems solely to be to entertain. Many of the passengers laugh, apparently not unkindly; whatever her lines, they're found genuinely funny. Then she's off at Samgori metro, so much energy so early in the morning, so late in life.
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We are stuck on the 176 while buses ahead queue to drop passengers in the small space beyond the new barrier on Waterloo Bridge. Something has caught the attention of a young couple several seats in front of me, something below the bridge on the concrete skirts of the National Theatre. In his expression, the tone of his voice, is genuine, urgent concern: he's saying to the glass and the air between here and there: "Don't do it, you don't have to do that." His companion, leaning across him, similarly dismayed, hand to her mouth murmuring "Oh stop it, no..." Another passenger now faces that way, shakes his head and sighs at what he sees. I'll have to look, but I'm imagining variations on contemporary themes - maybe someone about to detonate themselves in a spray of industrial drain cleaner and shattered moped parts. Now I see it isn't: a man kneels before a woman on the public slabs and is offering her a shiny object in a very small box. Now I understand my fellow passengers' reactions, but it's a relief nonetheless.
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We are stuck on the 176 while buses ahead queue to drop passengers in the small space beyond the new barrier on Waterloo Bridge. Something has caught the attention of a young couple several seats in front of me, something below the bridge on the concrete skirts of the National Theatre. In his expression, the tone of his voice, is genuine, urgent concern: he's saying to the glass and the air between here and there: "Don't do it, you don't have to do that." His companion, leaning across him, similarly dismayed, hand to her mouth murmuring "Oh stop it, no..." Another passenger now faces that way, shakes his head and sighs at what he sees. I'll have to look, but I'm imagining variations on contemporary themes - maybe someone about to detonate themselves in a spray of industrial drain cleaner and shattered moped parts. Now I see it isn't: a man kneels before a woman on the public slabs and is offering her a shiny object in a very small box. Now I understand my fellow passengers' reactions, but it's a relief nonetheless.
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Date: 2017-09-20 09:23 pm (UTC)