Four Foot Eight

Harlesden

The man standing on the half-empty northbound platform at eight o'clock in the morning has a slightly smug look on his face and a cheerful manner that's rather at odds with the masses huddled away from the drizzle on the southbound platform opposite awaiting their trains to Oxford Circus and Embankment and Piccadilly Circus. He whistles a happy tune as a southbound train arrives already more or less full and the lost souls opposite stuff themselves into its sweaty interior.

When a northbound train appears he looks up from his book and smiles to himself. Where on the train shall I sit today?, he wonders. Commuting against the flow. Yeah, that's the way to do it.