quite a bit of a stumble...

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St.Pancras
Jenna calls.
You remember St.Pancras?
The metro?
Yes. You remember de huge escalator?
I remember.

At London St. Pancras there is a escalator that seems to take you all the way down to Dante's purgatory.
It takes you down, into depths you do not want to be.
But hey, you can be philosophic as much as you want.
If you want to travel through London, you have to go down the St.Pancras escalator.

St.Pancras
Jenna calls.
You remember St.Pancras?
I remember.

I picture Jenna on de escalator going down.
People in front off her, people behind her.
No one speaks.
Hey, we're in London now.
This is not New York

Where can you go
Jenna calls.
You remember St.Pancras?
I remember.

I was standing on the escalator, Jenna says.
Almost down when I saw a woman falling.
She falls over her suitcase at the bottom of the escalator.
Then what, I say.
Where can you go, Jenna says.
You can't go up.
The escalator is full of people.

I picture Jenna at the St.Pancras escalator.
An escalator is like a highway.
You cannot make a stop at a highway.
Traffic will become jammed.
And that is precisely what happened at the bottom off the escalator.
A traffic-jam.

Traffic-jam
Jenna calls.
You remember St.Pancras?
I remember.

I was standing on the escalator, Jenna says.
Almost down, when I see a woman falling.
She falls over her suitcase at the bottom of the escalator.
Then what, I say.
Where can you go, Jenna says.
You can't go up.
So the person behind the women falls over her.
And the next person falls on top of them.
And the next person too.
And another one.
And another.
And then it is my turn.
I fall on the pile of jammed people.
It is not untill then that somebody manages to push the emergency button and stops the stairs to a hold.
The woman who fell over her suitcase is fine.
She just did not got her suitcase lifted fast enough from the moving stairs to solid ground.
The people who fell on top of her start collecting their belongings that have fallen out off their pockets and bags.
Is this your phone, they ask politely at each other.
When the pile of humans and belongings is quietly sorted, everybody rushes off his own way.
Only the woman who caused the trouble speaks out.
We had quite a bit of a stumble here, she says.

Quite a bit of a stumble
Jenna picks up her belongings and it is only untill she is sitting in the metro, she start laughing out lout.
If the same thing would have happened in New York, people would have been swearing at somebody so stupid to cause a human traffic jam.
No, not in London.

Is this your phone?
Jenna calls.
You remember St.Pancras?
I remember.


Anna