I Don't Like To Travel (Part One)

I’ve always disliked public transport. As a person without a driving license this has presented me with some difficulties over the years. Not that I’ve ever actually bothered to go through with my threat of becoming a qualified driver; inflicting my neurosis and weak constitution upon our nation’s roads would be too easy I suppose.
See, it’s not really the roads that make me nervous when I’m travelling but more the actual mode of transport. I guess I could narrow it down then to a kind of subcategory within the field of public transport and just say that being in metal carriages is what I don’t like. Metal encasements and shells etc. Being stuck inside awkward tin cans at high speeds, in public places and/or places high in altitude really just isn't me. Call me crazy, call me what you like. I don’t care.
Lifts. Elevators. They’re a prime example. I have no liking for them and I'll usually avoid them whenever I can. Lifts are awkward places. It’s the strange sobering etiquette forced upon you the moment you step inside. You're trapped shoulder to shoulder with a stranger; both of you too afraid to speak or make too much noise or behave in any natural way whatsoever lest the other regard them as strange or invasive.
What is it about those things that makes people behave like that? I mean, actively avoiding eye contact at all times, talking (if at all) in hushed reverential tones that trail off quickly and pathetically and for no real reason whatsoever. Those awkward silences where everyone is waiting to escape where only the buzzing of the artificial lights and the hum of the cables can be heard, no one at peace with the unnatural locomotion or the bobbing sensation in the bubble of your stomach. No thanks.
Yeah those things suck a fat one. I know I know it might sound a little dramatic, and I know I know, statistics will no doubt tell you blah blah blah, that you’ve more chance of getting killed by a stray champagne cork to the eye than die in a lift accident, but I can tell you that that’s little consolation to me. No, knowing there isn’t much chance that something will go wrong, leaving me stuck for hours AND/OR plummeting to a messy terrifying death isn’t much consolation at all.
Underground rail, that's another. Kind of like lifts but going across rather than up. I can picture it now, rocketing along without a clue where you are or what’s ahead or behind you apart from windswept musky tunnels and solid, solid rock. Makes my fucking skin start to crawl man I'm telling you.
Underground trains are similarly weird too. Socially I mean.
It’s the heat and the crowds at rush hour and the weird atmosphere of quiet inside. The rustling sounds of papers and books, of people genuinely doing all they can to avoid each other whilst enclosed together in a confined space. Whenever I find myself stuck in those things, in those illuminated carriages, I can’t shake the feeling of being looked at by people. I know this sounds silly but it’s true. I always get the odd sensation that I’m being sized up and assessed with sharp little studious glances from my fellow passengers that never last more than a few seconds. I don’t like it. They're fucking judging me. They're judging my hair, they're judging my clothes, they're judging my phone and my face and my shoes and my skin tone and my nationality. They're judging my identity and they're grafting a personality onto me that they assume I will have just because of the way I look. It takes seconds but it's happening; right there more than anywhere else. It's weird and it's sad and I don't like the fact that I do it too. I can't help it any more than they can.
What else?
Oh yeah, the major one actually. The one most people will agree on. The fact that once you’re inside, there really is no way out. No escape. Once you’re inside that train and underground in those tunnels you are stuck. Beneath the earth. Can you fully grasp that concept my friends? If ANYTHING happens on there then you are fucked. And not just a little fucked. but FUCKED. Dead fucked. Maimed fucked. Trapped with a bunch of strangers fucked. Flood? Fucked. Bomb? Fucked. Crash? Fucked. You name it: FUCKED.
That’s why I don’t like planes either, no escape from what is essentially an unnatural place for a human being to be. But seriously, don’t get me started on planes or I’ll never shut up about it.
The feeling of unnatural movement is something else I don’t like. It’s weird, I don’t mind cars, and buses are generally Ok apart from being full of people and being just about the slowest most unreliable pieces of shit around. But at least they’ve a normal atmosphere inside and at least you can get out and escape if you need to you know?
With trains in lifts and up in aeroplanes my thoughts go down dark pathways. I couldn’t say what these thoughts are specifically but they’re just kind of there, a miasma of unease inside me that I try to skirt around and stay away from. I get the old feeling of tightness around the chest and the giddiness lurking inside my head. I never feel very far away from full blown stomach crushing panic the entire time.

In order to try and combat this phobia of mine I devised a routine to combat my fears. I'll tell you all about it, maybe it could help you too sometime when you feel a little topsy turvy. It really works!
My method is kind of a little physical mantra that I try to do, it's not like a Hare Krishna thing where they have to say stuff out loud or and it's nothing to do with those money grabbing Transcendental Meditation fucks either. Its an original I thought of it myself. And it works too - well, it usually does anyway.
It begins with me slowing my breathing right down. Whilst I’m doing this I’m always being very careful to monitor the whereabouts of the stops of the train closely so I always know where I am in the city. Next, in tandem with keeping my breathing internal and steadied, I clench my toes up as hard as possible in my shoes. Tight, tight, tight up inside so that they’re into tiny little ball shapes. I try to get them so they’re almost like the feet of Chinese women in olden times when they used to have them bound up and they walked in that funny little baby step way.
I get my toes like that and I then make myself calm by breathing easier, deeply and fully, sometimes gripping my knees firmly and impassively and always maintaing a straight back, slightly leaning forward in my seat. I manage to do this all whilst continuing to look like a typical human being to my fellow passengers – as calm and serene as a doped up 50's housewife.
Next what I do is I try to imagine that any sense of panic or discomfort is something physical like a huge globule of thick liquid or a massive bit of jelly or something. I then push this blob of ill feeling down towards my toes, focusing hard and imagining forcing it down my body and out of my pores at the tips of my tightly balled feet. I really concentrate on keeping my toes tight and I just think about pushing it down. Down and away from me into the ether.
I’ve got this method down to a fine art now; sitting with my eyes open and nothing to show me up save for a thin layer of sweat on my brow close to the upper edges and roots of my hair.

So there we are, I just wanted to give you a small insight into my reasons for feeling so ill at ease and weird on public transport - don't worry, this is actually going somewhere. Let me elaborate.
I'd been practicing this method for quite some time until recently when something happened that that made me reassess things slightly.
It happened a few weeks ago. I’d arrived late because I couldn’t find my train ticket beforehand. Normally the ticket thing is the best part for me but this time it was just a total stress. I’d bought and paid (too much) for it and I’d had it in my hand with my name written down on the green coloured bit written right there in that purple ink they use.
“Robert. D. Arlowe”.

I Don't Like To Travel (Part Two)

Great. I’d had my ticket and my bag packed the night before, ready for me because I’m quite an organised person and I’d specifically placed the ticket on my desk between the little can of roll-on deodorant and my desk tidy. Wedged tight.
Well so I thought. I’d been unable to find it anywhere because it had turned out that my mother had moved it to a supposedly safer place for me where I wouldn’t forget it; the kitchen table. This caused me to fly into a rage which meant that I was late. I dislike people going into my room when I’m not there you see. Seriously, what did she expect me to do? That room is mine.
I arrived with just a couple of minutes to spare so I wasn’t able to buy any supplies that might make my journey slightly more bearable such as drinks or magazines or food or anything. Then I had to run all the way to make the train and then there was nowhere for me to sit anywhere because some idiot had taken my seat and refused to move out of it.
After trekking up and down the carriages for a couple of minutes I decided to try my luck in First Class. This proved successful and even cheered me up a little especially when I remembered that there’s free food and drink in these sections. Still I was further irritated by the fact that the train had to stop at the next station for over fifteen minutes because there was some kind of bullshit problem to do with the health of one of the staff members. Jesus.
Ok, that’s the lead up to my train journey in a nutshell; I just wanted to set the scene for you.
In the carriage sat at one of the sets of four seats surrounded by a small coffee table was a man who was dressed in a suit who was tap, tap tapping away diligently at a laptop computer. I had a seat to myself that was basically diagonally opposite on the left hand side. It was a two seater that faced backwards. I chose it at random.
For a while the train journey continued without any noteworthy incident. I passed the time by playing on my phone, absent mindedly distracting myself by reading old text messages and reminiscing about amusing things I had written to people over the last couple of weeks.
After about thirty minutes or so the train came to a stop. Stood on the platform ready to get on the train was a young looking woman. She looked younger than me, possibly around the age of seventeen or eighteen. She was in possession of a baby, quite a young one who must have been around eighteen months or slightly older, maybe bordering on the age of two or thereabouts because it was still in its pram. I felt able to guess it’s age thanks to the size of its head. It had the familiar large bubble like shape that is common in young children of that age bracket – my sister had a head like that when she was younger. Like a little blow up beach ball or something.
The woman made a real fuss of trying to get the pram up and onto the carriage. She was huffing and blowing and cursing to herself audibly enough for me to hear and consider maybe getting up and offering her some help. Still I feigned sleep, knowing that the man on the table would probably step up.
Sure enough he immediately stood, anxious to get in there and beat me to it. Through my supposedly sleep filled half closed eyes I was able to see him bluster along the aisle in some kind of superman act; hitching up his belt enthusiastically and giving me a look that seemed to say "know your place". This was despite the fact that to all intents and purposes, I was fast asleep.
The man folded and carried the pram up and onto the carriage whilst the girl brought the baby on board. Then he went back to collect her bag for her which had been sitting on the platform like a lonely canvas island.
As they pushed their way past me I watched the baby who in turn watched me over the girls shoulder. I tried to ignore its unsettling gaze that bored right into my already nervous disposition. I looked away, concentrating on my toes which were bunched tightly in rigid lined formation, ready to ball up at any time. My escape clause.
Soon enough the train was barrelling along at a tremendous pace. In our seats we shuffled from side to side in tandem with the trains unnatural rocking movements. I managed to relax a little and concentrate on listening to the chundering of the wheels, amusing myself by looking out of the window listlessly, trying not to allow myself to think too much.
Unbeknownst to me however, the train had begun its steady approach to a series of tunnels that plunged into and through a row of hills.
As I said earlier, I dislike tunnels intensely; always have, always will. I loathe the sudden unexpected transition into artificial light and the strange space like quality inside the vacuum of the carriages. I despise feeling so helpless and overwhelmed by the non-stop whirlwind of noise created inside, the whirring and the mechanics of the carriage; so foul and inescapable.I also dislike being able to see myself in the windows, helpless like some kind of reflection of my soul trapped in some God-awful black mirror that it can’t get out of.

Yes I know I'm irrational.

So. I’m on my backwards facing seat and I have no idea about the tunnels coming right up ready to surprise me. The man and the woman are sitting at the table, making polite chit chat about probably nothing of consequence. She clearly wants to delve into her magazine and he really needs to get back to his laptop but both of them persevere. What a typically British situation, two people talking to each other, too polite to acknowledge the fact that neither of them care what the other has to say. I can't say I suffer from the same problem.
Looking away from the adults however, I was struck by the baby. It sat there completely motionless, taking everything in with an air of utter superiority. As it sat, its hands were placed on each arm of the chair, which although being too far away for its reach, built as it was for an adult and thusly making the baby stretch each appendage out to full length, gave it a regal and benign air like it was sitting on a throne that it knew it owned. It remained, transfixed by the air ahead of it and its own position.
I've never really minded children (in small doses) and like most males of a particular age, I regard myself as an amusing avuncular type who can almost always be relied upon to entertain the fucking cute little kiddies. God knows where I got the notion from though.

So there I was on the train sat in my chair. I looked across towards the baby and began rocking back and forth slightly so as to try and catch its eye. The very moment that it looked at me I began gurning my face and crossing my eyes. I stuck my tongue out and raised my eyebrows clownishly before making eye contact again and giving a big broad “I’m only joking!” style smile accompanied by a little camp and theatrical wave of the hands and wiggle of the head as if to say; “Oh you!”
This was clearly a shallow and pathetic way of trying to establish some kind of rapport with the child. I have no idea why I did this; I can only equate it to the weird herd mentality of lifts and underground trains. By this I mean to say that at the time I thought: here is a child. I will try to play with it and make it laugh, just in the same way that when I get on a train or lift or plane or anything I think: here is a metal carriage with members of the public. Feel uncomfortable.
I continued my stupid little act for about thirty long seconds, gamely thinking I could win the child round. I was wrong.
At first it sat looking at me with its mouth agape and its eyes still bright with that dull basic lack of understanding that all babies have. However within an instant its gaze hardened, its mouth turned downwards and it was sat there looking at me with a look of total, odious contempt. It maintained eye contact for two seconds, looked down at its lap briefly before looking up at me again, really giving it to me with both barrels.
The scowl the baby gave me was almost too terrible to behold, it could have stopped a tank in its tracks. With its terrible eyes burning as if it was trying to flay me with its corneas, the baby removed its hands from the arms of the chair and let them flop down by its side as if it didn’t have the strength anymore. Then, just as I thought it was going to get up and smash me right in the mouth it looked away.

I seized my chance to break from the moment and sank down into my chair, humiliated and ashamed, glad that no one else had been around to notice this merciless defeat.

For some moments afterwards I sat looking out of the window resisting the urge to look at it again, but I found myself wanting to see exactly what it was doing. I slyly glanced up at it one more time and really looked at the thing.
I was struck by how pale its eyes looked. They were a milky blue shade just like the sheet on my bed back in my room at home. They were hooded with thick canopy like lids that gave the child a studied and calculating look of satisfaction that was entirely natural and impossible to cultivate or train in someone so young. The eyes gave it a poised insouciant expression, almost as if it was considering anything and everything around it, turning and watching and dilating at all times yet hidden beneath and always considering. Its bulbous head was draped in typical cutesie-pie curls that made little loop-the-loops over each of its little button mushroom ears and is lips were thick and doughy pink like short fat plasticine worms.
As I studied it further its arms once again slowly placed themselves on the sides of the chair in that regal, powerful stance. A solitary pudgy index finger bobbed up and down, tapping on the plastic like the arms of a metronome, tap, tap, tap.
Suddenly before I knew what the hell was going on, my appraisal of the baby was interrupted because it shot both of its arms out and slammed them on the table in front of it. Next it turned its head right around to face me, looking at me with a short sharp snap of its little neck, its eyes widening and boggling right at me.
The moment it did this the train went plunging into a tunnel. Not only that but it did so precisely at the same moment as another train on the adjacent track to ours hurtled right by in the opposite direction.
Now for those of you who don’t know I’ll just tell you. When trains do this, they make an enormous noise. I honestly think that if the industrial revolution could be condensed into one soundbite then the sound of two large trains passing one another at high speed in a tunnel would be it.
At the sound of this and in shock at the babies goggling face I jumped out of my skin and made a little barking sound. A burst of fear totally engulfed me as the tunnel turned the windows black and made the lighting inside the carriage crisp and false and bright. My head started to swim and my heart started to pound as if the pressure had been cranked up inside my body, I felt the familiar strange tight feeling in my chest and could feel the viscosity of my saliva change so it was thin and slickly runny inside my mouth.
I leaned forward in my chair to open my airways a little and try to regulate myself. The rocking of the train did not help however. It seemed to have sped up tenfold, trying to race the other train that was going in tandem the other way and was raising an absolutely almighty noise in the tunnel whilst doing so. I leaned back again so my back was ramrod straight against my chair and placed my hands on my knees. Next I balled my toes up in my shoes and tried to concentrate using my usual method. It was then at this precise moment that I looked up at the baby and saw it watching me calmly, as if it was enjoying the scene and my clear discomfort.

“Stop it!” I said to it but it made no difference. It carried on looking at me as the train continued swaying from side to side.

“Stop looking at me like that!”

It merely smiled. My toes were balled up inside my shoes but I was unable to concentrate on forcing the stress down into them. It simply built up and built up inside my chest as a computer buzzing sound started to ring in my ears and almost behind my eyes. I felt like I was going under into a full blown panic attack.
Just as I started to groan and feel sick I looked over at the baby and then, no word of a lie, it started to make goo-goo eyes at me, cruelly mimicking the friendly repartee that I had attempted to impart upon it only minutes before. It crossed its eyes and stuck out its tongue for what felt to me like five or ten minutes, but was probably in reality only a couple of hateful seconds. It then promptly stopped and fixed me with an iron stare.
“STOP!! I need to concentrate!” I cried.
The baby smiled, it had a full set of perfectly formed white milk teeth. A saliva gland hung tantalisingly from its upper right canine. Its pale blue eyes remained fixed upon me coldly then as its grin faded from its face and with a dramatic altering of its position it shifted. Drinking me in, looking me up and down at my sweating face and my clearly uncomfortable countenance it seemed on the verge of something. Instead it opened its mouth and simply said.
“You really need to grow up you know.”