Round in circles

I’m sitting. I’m waiting. I’m quiet. I’m talking. I’m drinking. I’m nervous.

“Two minutes” a voice cries out and I’m nervous. The staff are all around, cleaning quietly, quickly. Acting as if nothings going on. We prepare ourselves. We make outlandish statements supporting one action or another, depending on what is about to come.

And then we hear it. A rumbling. A contained roar. An excitable drumming. And voices, way too many voices. It arrives and the doors open, but instead of people spilling out of the carriages, bottles fly out. A cacophony of broken glass drowned out by the sudden mob screaming at us to join them. Champagne and sick covering the floors. Guy Fawkes masks covering the troublesome ones and the out of place.

We step on, into the sweat and the sound. Into the cheering and jeering and steamed up windows. Cameras are everywhere, but everything is a blur. A kid stands in front of me and hears about drink and drugs and swearing and the police. We feel bad for those just going home. We feel bad for those still at work, in this….mess.

Suddenly we stop. The line is dead due to trouble ahead. The crowd goes one way, after making a stand against nothing but a disembodied voice, and we go the other. Phew.

For the last time, phew.