At half past nine in the morning two trains arrive at the station simultaneously - one from the north, one from the south. Two hundred passengers disembark and head simultaneously for the stairs to the lift landing. As they round the corner they find themselves stopping dead, piling into each other like ball bearings poured into a bin as they run into the back off the crowd who arrived on the previous train.
While the lifts are being sent up and down as fast as they can go, with one lift out of action ("due to a mechanical fault", according to a sign) it's still slow going and the crowds only seem to be getting bigger. It's amazing how many people suddenly find the energy in them to climb the 130-odd spiral stairs back to the world of daylight rather than waiting in a crowded subterranean tunnel for their turn to trudge forward into the lifts, heads down like extras from Metropolis.
Posted by mpk at June 23, 2004 9:52 PM | TrackBack