Senses

Senses – Written 2007

The wind whistles through the trees as I sit there on the cold, metal seat of the tram stop. All around me are other commuters just wanting to get home and relax with a hot cup of tea.

A cup of tea would be so nice right now. A really milky one with two sugars; I can almost taste it. But in reality all I can taste is the remnants of my mint that I’d been sucking on for the last ten minutes.

Over the road from the tram stop I can see a tramp sat on the floor. He looks filthy and judging from the faces of the people stood near him he doesn’t smell too rosy either. I wonder how he got like that, how can someone get to live in that state? He obviously has no money, nowhere to live and barely enough food. What was his life like before? Did he have a business that went bust? Did he just run away from it all?

My musings are cut short when he suddenly gets up and walks away and out of sight.

Someone at my tram stop has chips; I can smell them now. They must have just arrived and it’s making me hungry. I covertly look around to see who it is. It’s a young girl, probably just come out of school, and her mum. They are cuddled together sharing the chips. The girl only looks about nine or ten and I wonder which school she goes to and why she has to get the tram home. Both her and her mother look smart and well dressed, yet both look at ease eating chips out of the paper at a tram stop.

People around me start to move, swarming towards the edge of the platform; the tram is here. I board quickly and am lucky enough to get a seat next to an old lady. She smells like posh soap and has a woolly hat on that makes me smile.

The tram is full to busting and all around me are the bodies of other people. They bang into me as the tram starts and a woman’s bag hits me on the back of the head. She apologises in an unconvincing way and turns back to chat to her friend.

I can hear snippets of people’s conversations, one sided conversations of people on mobile phones and the loud hissing sound of someone’s headphones as they listen to music. I can’t help but wonder how loud they have it if I can hear it but it’s their ear drums not mine at risk.

The tram trundles on and I try to look past the old lady and out of the window. The world seems to be moving instead if the tram and only the occasional bump ruins the illusion. I watch for landmarks that I’m getting close to the stop where I need to get off. Upon seeing these I fight my way to the doors ready for when the tram stops. I push my way through what seems like tens of sweaty people and finally reach the doors just as the tram stops. I step off the warm and clammy tram into the freezing air of the world. I listen as the tram moves away before starting to walk.