Edgeware

In April 2001 I went back to Edgeware in order to recall some of the memories of my youth and maybe relive some events of the time.
When I came out of the station I didn’t recognize anything and thought I was somewhere else. I went back to the tube station to make sure I was in the right place.
“Yes. I was at Edgeware, London underground station, at the end of the Northern Line; the black one, just after ‘Burnt Oak’, but it’s not the same place”.
I walked to where the ‘White Lion Pub’ had been, and everything I’d know and seen had disappeared. I felt alien, alone and isolated. Everything I knew was gone, and I was in the past. I didn’t belong, and maybe I should be somewhere else. Even my memories had been taken from me; I have been robbed and have nothing left.
It was a different world; I couldn’t identify anything or anyone. There were people from Kakistan, Turkistan, Ubekistan, Nagistan, Orangoutang, people from countries with no names, and countries that haven’t been discovered yet, and maybe countries that don’t even exist. This was not the world I had known.
I catch a tube and head for Victoria Station hoping that I’ll fine some normality.

I’m in Victoria Station and I’m surrounded by hundreds of blind people without white sticks crashing into me. Some are towing multi-wheeled trolleys loaded with luggage and are travelling at speed in different directions. No one seems to have the right of way, and I’m expecting a major pile up at any moment, and – after being involved in several collisions – I decide to hop on the number 38 bus, as I no longer feel safe.
It’s an old Routemaster from 1966, with seats designed for Twiggies, and she’s still plying her trade on the streets of London – despite qualifying for Incapacity Benefit, refusing to lie down and die – and she comes complete with a real live Oriental conductor with lots of charm.
He looks like a karate expert and a twin of the character, who made Inspector Clossaue’s life a misery. I’m desperately trying to find a space on the upper deck, and just hope he doesn’t charge at me and throw me over his head, and down the stairs, with a parting karate chop.
We travel through Westminster, which is teeming with tourists in cheap, gaudy clothes, fat and ugly, with cameras suspended from their body parts – they could save time and buy postcards, but I suppose gawking is in their nature, and they haven’t yet found a life. They go to the shows, but see nothing but bricks and mortar. They don’t feel the building.
There are crowds in the other side of the street walking towards me, looking confused, afraid and disconnected, lost in their problems. People whose dreams have left them, and their reason for living have deserted them. They seem to be struggling in the mud and the sand, and don’t know where they're going or why.
Suddenly a tall, athletic African in roller skates overtakes our number 38 and races down our bus lane, with a London bus in front of him and one behind. Jesus, lets hope he has M.O.T.
(to be continued)