#elephant&castle

[evasajovic]

[imaginetheworldwithoutlove-blog1]

This one to the turkish guy i met at leicester square. Firstly it was really nice to meet you like seriously thankyou talking to strangers for me is a big no-no but it was fun to talk to you. Secondly i am really very sorry for giving you the wrong direction. Should have checked before nodding my head haha. And lastly HAPPY BIRTHDAY. I hope you have a great birthday. Stay happy and healthy. Its kinda weird that this guy was a stranger didn't knew he existed until yesterday but he isn't stranger anymore as i know few things about him now. We will never meet again and i dont think you have a tumblr so you probably won't know about this post lol but thankyou again. Have fun summer schooling. -the girl who gave you wrong direction to leicester square p.s. Beards are cool. They make you look alot more attractive and manly haha

[lagrime]

elephant & castle subway

[blogbloga-blog1]

[irreverence-inc]

Bustle

Now was the time and the time was now.  That is provided, of course, that you're not actually doddering around SE17 right now; the present tense of this all only works if you're at home.  If you are at home and can see this bus stop from your window, then you'll need to employ some imagination, or I'm fucked, frankly. This whole deal is blown to shit and I'll never spin a yarn again - not one based in Southwark, anyway - and I'll be banished for ever suggesting that this is occurring right now. My feasibility fines will pile up and I'll be forced to move address and come up with another pretentious pseudonym.

If it's very late, so as to make all this bustle seem plausible, permit me to ask that rather than imagining that it's busy around this hour, please, please imagine that you are in fact in a different time, roughly 8am, a weekday. Oh there's school kids involved too, so school's on, bear that in mind (one must take proper precautions when imagining so as to not end up having their mind erased for considering things too expansively and finding out too much (for more information, see: better stories than this)). If the request isn't feasible then your watch must be broken. Should you refuse to co-operate, and subsequently don't like the story that should follow, blame yourself, and remember that I once said please, twice. Should you adhere to my demands and still find the story naff or crap or whatever you'd call something that's shoddy, question whether you read it properly. Did you remember to desensitize yourself to foul language?  Are you sure you can read? Did you synchronize your watch as is necessary? Anyway, now, the time is fucking now, anyway...

Waiting for the 35 outside the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Jasper's view juxtaposes 70's cubist architecture, in the form of a sorry looking shopping centre, next to some 21st century sky scraping. From his perspective the Strata resembles a spent lipstick holder; it's crowning wind turbines out of Jasper's view, a future testament to a time when buildings were built to look like they could be Transformers disguised as buildings, a time when presenting the illusion of environmental concern was higher on peoples agenda than the actual environment itself.  Though he can't see them - the turbines aren't spinning, the wind throws his hair about his face - makes the cigarette he's smoking a real health and safety hazard, but the turbines remain stationary - as if someone forgot to plug them in. 

Mary, exiting the shopping centre, couldn't steal a glance at the skyscraper if she cared to (and she didn't care to aspire her eyes so high, her's was a ground floor existence); with her sons Marlon and Trevor making quick work of the human traffic all about the outside markets.  She yells their names for them to stop but only succeeds in gaining the attention of another Trevor, this one fully-grown.  He looks to where he heard his name, sees a mother with her hands full, smiles to himself and returns to his business of standing around selling rugs.

After a nightmare rolling the fucker - the wind thwarting attempts to fill his Rizla with Cutter's Choice - and then a flickered flame singeing a trail down the fag for smoke and nicotiney goodness to escape from; by the time Jasper has finished this bastard cigarette, he is in need of another.  But the bus is approaching, and now it's pausing at the lights that stutter access to the Walworth Road, and he has a trip to take. 

As the strangers that have been lingering outside the Tabernacle amass around the bus post that Jasper had planted himself by, he edges closer to the curb; attempting to maintain his place at the front of a cue that never took physical form and only ever existed in the British mind's waiting for this bus.  More than a dozen bodies politely wrestle to board seconds before their rivals - their fellow Londoner's, fellow men - onto a bus with seating for all. They can't see the lights change, but they know they've gone green by the sight of accelerating cyclists and motor vehicles jolting as handbrakes are lifted, several of the commuters brace for a scrum.

Mary, now beneath the A201 roundabout, catches up to her son's engaging with a homeless man, Charles, sat on soggy cardboard.  He had asked an adult passer-by for change, but only the boys had noticed and responded that they had none. Charles smiled and told them not to worry, this had stalled the boys better than the desperate heckling of their mother ever could. 

Marlon asks for Charles' name, Charles answers 'what happens when you don't stay in school', assuming a different question.  Caught-up to the boys, Mary maintains her pace, and gently pushes their shoulders to come-along. 

Marlon will spend months asking himself what kind of name that is, then he'll forget the incident and the question for years, then - in his thirties - he'll regale a dinner party with the anecdote after some wise sage had remarked something all wise and sage-like about not getting the answer you want but the answer you need. Charles, who by Marlon's thirties is long dead, never meant such sageness, he had just answered the question he assumed the boys would ask, that that more often is asked than that of his name.  

The cyclists have burst past the lights, quick to attack the large roundabout before the less eco-considerate road-users can catch them and - with minimal effort - overtake them.  They whizz past the bus stop, Jasper has been trying to catch the eyes of any of the cyclists, but his maniacal staring is for nothing. He has gone days without substantial human contact outside of his work-life (wherever you imagine that to take place, you decide, I don't care, it doesn't matter, he'll be dead soon and he's fictional anyway, why do you care so much?) and is at a mental tipping point where wigging out a cyclist so they might fall off of their bike seems agreeable.

As the cyclists retain their balance and go on with their lives, with all but one not noticing - only Allison sees him and it only serves as another reason to avoid riding buses in London, Mary and her bouncing offspring emerge from the underpass to see their bus approaching their stop. The boys are quick to sprint the 30 metres to the crowd all about Jasper, Mary - seeing the anticipating horde - knows she has the time to walk there without haste, and just yells out the boys names to slow them down.

As the 35 leans into the bus lane, the expectant horde collectively shudders.  Trevor, eager not so much for the bus as he is to beat these others to achieving the status of being on a bus, slinks through the crowd and inadvertently pushes Paul's hand against Claudette's rear. Claudette's flailing reaction sparks a domino effect of unwanted human contact that pulses Jasper off of his balance and off of the curb, falling into the road and into the path of the 35. Now no one gets to ride the bus.