The Way to Work

Every journey is much the same as every other journey when you’re riding to work. And when you get there every day is much the same as every other day. 

He gets up early to potter round and make some tea; the cat cries for her breakfast; the childrens’ sandwiches to be made. He does his chores and then takes a few minutes for himself, sipping tea in the dark conservatory.

wet black morning

a man sitting with his cat

shaking branches

Later, as he manoeuvres his bike out of the house for the ride to work, the sky has cleared. The journey starts with a mile of freewheeling luxury down to Brixton where the traffic is heavier and more impatient. Negotiating these rapids requires timing and positioning; you can’t change tack in the middle of the stream.  

Sometimes he thinks about the day ahead or the night just passed and sometimes he just concentrates on the way.

a yellow indicator 

at a red traffic light 

rapt in blue sky

There are many paths for the cyclist: the pure black road; the gutter with its storm drains, potholes and patchwork macadam; the thin green line of the cycle path; the broad red swathe of the bus lane; even the pavement in case of emergency. They all have their textures, colours and minor transgressions.

in Brixton Road 

queuing at the bus stop

a line of brown trees

Some 20 minutes in to his journey and he passes the Oval cricket ground and heads up the Kennington Road to the roundabouts at Elephant & Castle. There’s less time for idle thought as he nears the City, the mind focused on the weaving traffic and the bump and thud of the scarred road.  

He breaks his journey halfway over Southwark Bridge, just minutes minute from his final destination; there to rest and smoke a cigarette in quiet contemplation. Over the parapet, the slow brown river, high at this time of day, is drifting towards the sea.  There’s a brisk wind blowing and when he flicks the scrawny dog end over the edge it falls spinning down to the water below. He watches how the wind catches it just above the water and carries it straight back up again, so close that he can almost reach out and touch it. But another gust fetches it away, back along the bridge from whence he came. 

caught in two minds

the slow brown river laps 

the old stone bridge

He smokes another cigarette, this one a tailor-made cigarette, and when he drops the glowing butt it falls straight and true, down to the river below. The wind ruffles the surface and then gently nuzzles the stub upstream, against the tide. 

Unable to delay the working day any longer, he mounts up and rejoins the rush-hour traffic as it inches across the bridge; slipping past on the inside he cuts across the junction on the other side of the bridge and its just three more traffic lights and he arrives at his office in Queen Street.

in white open plan

a freshly waxed Cheese Plant

green and trembling