All I can smell is oil, sweat and wearing electric engine fumes perforating in entanglement through the stiflingly warm and humid air.
It’s been a tough day at work, nothing new there. I can still hear the sound of my boss’s voice ringing in my ears in perpetuity. He has a deep droning voice, the type which is great for delivering speeches, but not the sort you want to hear booming in your ears all day.

The sound of steel upon steel, like a loose fan belt in the winter’s air is a welcome distraction. Yet it’s not a distraction I really desire, or so I thought. The screech of the rolling stock means we’re approaching our next stop. I hear the recorded voice over the tannoy announce ‘The next stop is Oxford Circus’ in a crackly sounding voice from the worn out, neglected speaker. The carriage is not much better to say the least. It brings my attention to the door.

The doors swish open, like curtains opening in the morning allowing the outside world to penetrate into your sealed off domain. Hoardes of faces bustle and push their way on to the carriage, it is rush hour and extremely busy.
Suddenly! I catch sight of a long mane of beautifully dark, well groomed hair as it brushes past my face. I smell the smell of expensive hair products with an aroma that I can only describe as summer fruits, cornfields and angels combined. My stomach jumps and flutters as if my heart has missed a beat and is suspended in space and time.
I don’t think I have ever encountered beauty of this magnitude before, though it is not the first time I have ever thought this, I am sure it won’t be the last. I immediately lose sense of all my gloomy surroundings, Am I in heaven? Is this an angel? No such luck! A poorly maintained section of track, throwing me sideways and jarring me back to my senses tells me that indeed, I am not.

I look at my watch, the cracked face from last months adventure in the Australian outback reminds me how lucky I am to still be here. I must have this fixed, I remind myself for the millionth time. A flashback of myself as I fall down a 30ft cravace hits me like a hammer blow. I try not to wince as I remember the pain before I blacked out to the fading cries of my hiking partner and best friend.

I am trying not to look, though the butterflies in my stomach are inescapable. I feel my elevated heart rate making me even more uncomfortable than I was before, I loosen my tie slightly. You don’t need to be a body language expert to know what I am thinking. Trying to distract myself from the distraction that distracted me is just not working. I take a sneaky sideways glance, dam! she is not looking at me. I was secretly hoping to have been noticed as I noticed her, it isn’t to be.

She has her pink iPhone glued to her hand. ‘Probably texting her boyfriend’ I imagine, heart sinking at the thought. I do not know why I find myself thinking this way as I know nothing will ever come of this little escape fantasy of mine. ‘Oh well’! I tell myself, ‘there’s no harm in window shopping.’
As I take another look I catch her eye. My heart races again as she throws a welcoming smile my way, I smile back. ‘It is good to be friendly’ I tell myself as a lifetime of possibilities with her flash through my mind. ‘Compose yourself’ I say, ‘she will probably get off at the next stop and you will never see her again.’
I feel childish having these thoughts as I remind myself I am only human.
Yet I cannot get that smile out of my mind.

The screech of the rails and the voice ringing through the air tell me we are approaching another station. ‘The next station is Notting Hill Gate’ is announced over the tannoy this time.
As fortune would have it, is not her who is going to leave the train first, for this is my stop.

My job in the city allows me to live in a beautiful town house in the upmarket, lively, London suburb of Notting Hill. I count my blessings as I realise how fortunate I am in so many ways.
My mind is drawn back to my underground crush, I wonder what her name could be as I mentally run through choices I think would suit her. I imagine myself inviting her for a drink. No! that would be wierd I don’t know her, yet why is this so?
Do we ever know anyone until we know them? Still, I decide against.
Back to my beautiful home in lonely, peaceful solitude I will go.

Do I surround myself in beauty for the inescapable fact that beauty is missing from my personal life? I ask myself. Who knows? Maybe Freud!
I wonder if she is thinking the same, if others think as I think, or is it just me? Do I need to get a life? Do I need to get a wife? Should I get a dog?
Haunted with these thoughts. I alight the carriage through those well oiled doors, probably the only well maintained part of the train,
saying goodbye in my mind. Leaving my underground crush.
Forever! ❤️‍🩹