It's the beginning of the evening peak. The station is largely quiet as two trains approach simultaneously from the south - one from Bank bound for Edgware, one from Charing Cross bound for High Barnet. They pull into the northbound platforms to stop more or less simultaneously, and as the doors open the station comes to life.
Commuters burst from the doors, sprinting for the connecting passageways linking the two branches of the Northern Line as if their lives depended on it. In a way their lives do depend on it - every minute they have to spend waiting for the train is a minute they're not spending at home putting their feet up, having a bath or being with the kids. Passages which were deserted twenty seconds earlier mill with pushing, shoving commuters who simply want to go home.
Some of them make it to the other platform in time and leap onto the northbound trains which will finally take them home. Others arrive too late and look irritatedly at the indicators, wishing that they were somewhere else as the trains pull away.
As the lift grinds slowly down towards the platform Cecilia Williams eyeballs the youth leaning against one wall and frowns at the tinnitus of white noise hissing from his Walkman. This is the worst part of public transport, she thinks. Having to share confined spaces with all kinds of riffraff, pickpockets, junkies muggers, and god knows what. That one over there's obviously up to no good. I bet he's a junkie. I bet he's just waiting for his moment to bash me over the head and steal my purse, leave me bleeding and unconscious to travel up and down in this lift until someone notices. He's got that vacant, stoned look in his eyes.
On the other side of the lift, Carl Hornchurch blinks hazily and looks around. Almost dropped off there, he thinks. Can't wait to get home - these extra night shifts really knock you out, but I've got to keep going - we really need the overtime for the deposit now we've got to move sooner then we'd planned. Once the baby arrives, the flat just won't be big enough for all of us.
Frank Turner, aged 88, intends to take the Tube to visit a friend in Clapham. It's the first time he's been out for a while - it was always Alison who was the travelling type, and with her gone there's little call to venture further than the shops. He's always been happy pottering about minding his own business - the house isn't much, but it's paid for, unlike those on either side. Nearly two hundred thousand pounds each they went for a few years ago. Frank wonders how the young folk these days can manage to make ends meet with the amounts of mortgage and rent they have to pay.
He wasn't going to go anywhere today, but the phone call last night changed his plans - an old mate from the ARP isn't well, and it's possible he might not last long. Nearly everyone's gone now, Frank thinks, and soon it'll be just me, left behind in a world that's changed beyond recognition.
He approaches the ticket office but it's closed, so he has to brave the wall of humming ticket machines that stare blankly back at him, impassive, like every other face in his world.
"But of course, the 1975 production at Stratford just knocked spots off that modern version they did at the National last year. You know - the one with all the nudity and the swearing."
"Ah, but surely the swearing was valid, wasn't it? I mean, the piece is full of energy and passion, and for most people it would be perfectly natural to swear in some of the positions those characters are put in. Besides, I think Baum's original vision was obviously to make more of the sexual tensions inherent in the main group of protagonists. It was only prudish self-censorship that led to the storyline being neutered."
"Yes, maybe.. now that I think of it, it's clear that the two characters who are artificially created are, being sans genitalia, a reference to castration, symbolic of the malaise of the male condition as a whole in a post-feminist world."
A young man who hasn't been able to help overhearing this dialogue rounds on them. "Oh, for god's sake! It's just the Wizard of sodding Oz! Will you people get a grip?"
The supposedly respectable-looking man slouched in a seat on a northbound train that's just terminated here doesn't want to move. The station assistant trying to convince him that the train's not going any further and he'll have to change to get to Colindale bravely weathers the storm of expletives and abuse aimed at herself, at London Underground, at Ken Livingstone, at the railway unions and at the world in general, only wincing slightly every so often as the man's rancid, alcohol-sodden breath hits her face in warm blasts with every new outburst.
After some time the man is persuaded to leave the train, but only after making a particularly lewd suggestion. Once he has stumbled onto the next Edgware train the station assistant takes the opportunity for a quick break. Her payslip has arrived, and as she looks at the depressingly small number in the bottom right-hand corner she considers taking up a less stressful career.
A tired-looking woman gets off the train and yawns. She's still not quite sure why she's here, but Head Office were very keen on someone calling in at the flagship stores to, well.. to do what? Something was said about "jollying the staff along", and something about "emphasising the commitment of Happybuy Holdings Ltd to a 'listening management' policy".
Sounds like mumbo-jumbo to me, she says to herself. Maybe there's a bit of worry among the worker bees at all this talk of aggressive takeovers from Japan, but it's nothing we won't be able to handle. And why does this meeting have to be at 8 o'clock? She rarely leaves for work before 9:30, and resents being dragged out two hours earlier than usual.
I'll tell them, she thinks. Oh yes, I'll jolly them along, the lazy overpaid scuzzbags. It's time this company made it perfectly clear just what the position of the shop floor workers is as far as the board and shareholders are concerned.
A loud man in a suit is lined up on the platform waiting for a train south to the City. His phone rings. Loudly.
"HELLO? YES? AH, HI! I'm just waiting for the train! No, THE TRAIN!"
"I'LL BE THERE SHORTLY! In about half an hour! No, HALF AN HOUR!"
"WHAT? Oh! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Yeah! Good one!"
Suddenly he stops and stares as a huge circular spaceship appears overhead, blotting out the sun and emitting a low, throbbing sound. A round hatch opens in the bottom as a lime green beam of energy spears the hapless phone user, dragging him kicking and screaming up through the air and through the hatchway before as quickly as the ship appeared, it is gone.
Susan Cartwright, waiting for her trip to the bright lights of Kennington, faces a dilemma. She's not sure whether the plan of action forming in her head would be wise. They might find out, she thinks. These people are professionals. They'd see through her right away, she'd never be able to bluff it. She closes her eyes and tries to think of the abuse, accusations and recriminations that would inevitably follow. It's a crime even to be thinking of it. She'd be punished for eternity, deprived of all the good things he holds so dear.
Oh, you're only young once. To hell with the diet mafia, she thinks, and drops 50p into the chocolate machine.
Flying down the platform stairs, arms waving madly in an attempt to be noticed, a man in his thirties finally gets to the train as the doors sweep shut in front of him. He bangs his fist on the closed door as the train pulls away, leaving him behind. "Bugger!", he exclaims to the world at large, and sits on a bench to wait for the next one.
He picks at his jeans in frustration, pulling thread out of an unravelling seam. A shy-looking woman next to him remarks, "Bad idea, that. You don't want your trousers falling off in public, do you?". He looks at her in surprise and attempts to find a witty comeback, but the words suddenly aren't there.
Eleven months later they are married. Her parents don't approve.
The platform is strangely still and quiet as Simon Jefferson, trailing a briefcase and a Daily Mail, arrives to catch the first train. He nods to the small cluster of people already there and sticks his hands in his overcoat pockets against the cold. Laura doesn't like him getting up this early -- she says the bed is too cold by the time she gets up two hours later -- but he doesn't have the choice. Have to start early, get yourself ahead of the competition. Avoid the crowds.
Banking's a cutthroat business, he thinks to himself as his breath condenses in the cold morning air. Other guys all after my job and my bonuses. Get in early, get them before they can get you.
He tries not to think of his dangerously overextended mortgage as the bright interior of the empty train bangs and rattles into the platform to begin its own workday.