Member-only story
A Gap, Minded
A story of almost recovery
You know how it is. The gap between flights is so long you stroll the airport a few times, then settle down at what you think is going to be your gate, well before they have actually announced it. If you are a writer departing to a new destination, this spurs you to start another story, and you open your notebook or tablet. You become deeply engrossed in getting the first lines right, and look around to try to trigger the start to your spontaineous novel. And then you spot an interesting fellow passenger coming towards your gate.
She was limping to mine. I got up from my failed five lines and helped her with her bag. It was a short flight to London, and when we arrived I went to her seat at the back of the plane and took her bag down for her. We took the escalator down to the tube station at the airport.
“MIND THE GAP PLEASE!” the automated speaker announced, as the tube screeched into the station.
It echoed, at every station, she said, when she had taken her first tube ride from Kensal Green to Holborn, then onwards to British Museum, where she finally understood what the meaning of a gap that needed minding was, and could soon recite the sentence clearly. She’d noticed the gap also in-between the train stops, on the big power advertisements plastered over the walls, by the types of clothes people…
