Against Humanity We Unite

The snow. To city commuters it is the enemy, and it unites us, momentarily in a common cause. To get to work. To defy the blasted weather.

"Excuse me... sorry" wheedled a voice on the Overground this morning. All eyes snapped on the disturber of the peace. A mousy young woman, pawing at the lady next to her. "I couldn't possibly ask you for a napkin, could I? I've forgotten mine..."

Her interlocutor paused with boggle-eyed suspicion, and yet within moments had kindled enough humanity to share the smug pack of tissues with the panicking, drip-nosed stranger. It was touching, as they shared the packet, and the mousey woman de-snotted humbly, blushing gratefully.

I shifted from one foot to the other, my laptop bearing down on the opposite side of my lower back.

"Bit squashed, isn't it" a soft voice remarked.

To my surprise, the woman next to me had decided it was OK to talk too. I couldn't hide the lingering lack of computation on my bleary face, but recovered some sort of hearty, affirmative chuckle as quickly as I could.

The other morning, on a similarly packed train, somebody had SNEEZED.

"Bless you" my boyfriend had genially called. 

It was remarkable just for that fact. Nobody speaks to each other like normal human beings at that time of day. He had revealed himself as a work-from-homer in just a moment, and suddenly, suspicions were raised all round. An outsider, the hush seemed to cry.

For as commuters, we are not comrades but bloodthirsty, lone wolves, prowling for commodity - for space, a Metro, adequate seating... maybe even an audacious takeaway coffee. Here there is no loyalty, there are no alliances, only calculating syndicates. Gathering in groups at the top of escalators, at the tube doors, or along the 'in the know' sections of the platform, we crowd with intent or dark, private planning, macs flapping in a sea of identical coats, a colony of insular drives.

So much so that when someone reveals their outsider status as a non-commuter, a human being that thinks they're above the accepted form, they are instantly regarded with the highest contempt and unified mistrust.

Well, that and extreme weather.

But it least it sort of unites us.