Single

"You know," Tommo said, "I don't think anyone ever gets off the tube."

"Despite the seemingly obvious evidence," Tim replied, glancing around 
from the ticket machine towards the people coming out of the London 
Bridge station gates.

"It is seemingly obvious, I'll grant. And I'm willing to concede that 
people do leave tube stations all the time. I'm not about to claim 
these good men and women are illusionary."

"That's a relief," said Tim, as the gates briefly snatched their tickets 
and returned them. They continued smoothly onto the escalator. It was a 
Sunday and there were a few people about. It wasn't commuter busy but 
people were heading to the cricket.

"Let me be more precise," said Tommo. 

"Man, I'm not sure if I can deal with it this morning," Tim said, and 
so they walked together in silence through the tunnels to the Northern 
Line. They waited on the platform in silence too. There were a lot of 
people waiting.

Morden 3 Min, the electronic sign noted.

"The people getting off the tube are not the same people getting on. 
People get on, and off, but no-one ever completes a journey."

"Is this just the old stepping into the same river twice thing?" Tim 
asked. "Because you know the whole point of that is that it's a 
different river because the water has flowed on. It's like new water 
and everything, the banks of the river have subtly eroded or whatever. 
But it is in fact entirely possible to step onto the same carriage twice. 
They reuse them. Even London Underground isn't so careless with money as 
to throw trains out after a single use. Every day they send the same 
carriages back and forth. It's like recycling."

"That's not really what I'm getting at," said Tommo.

"I mean sad English gits in stereotypical anoraks probably note down the 
numbers and keep track of which carriages they've travelled on. You can 
probably ring up some guy in um, Morden or Chipping Sodbury or something 
and find out how many times the 734A has been up and down the Northern 
Line."

"No, you don't get it," said Tommo, as the train arrived. They embarked, 
standing slightly squished next to the doors, as all the seats were 
taken.

"I mean the carriages really aren't the point. Or they're beside the 
point. Or they're like an auxillary point that's interesting to explore 
once the main disturbing thesis is accepted."

"Yeah what is that exactly Tommo."

"Right, well that people never actually get off the tube."

"So, um, where do they go man?"

"I don't know. That's part of what's disturbing about it."

They arrived at Borough station. A few more people gamely squeezed on.

"Well if you don't know where they go, why are you rejecting all the 
evidence that they don't actually complete the journey? Oyster cards for 
instance. They keep an electronic record of each journey made by the 
holder. Disproving your thesis."

"Yeah well I never liked Oyster cards hey."

"Yeah. I know." Last night Tim had been disturbed from his drunken, 3am 
sleep by a screaming of Take That You Bastard from the kitchen. On 
slumping downstairs he discovered Tommo melting one of the smart blue 
London Transport smartcards on the gas stove. Blue plastic spatters 
decorated the white metal of the range like pretty bond-destroying 
flowers.

"Yeah I know," Tim said, "but I always thought it was out of, um, valid 
civil liberties concerns on which reasonable people can disagree and 
write perturbed letters to the Guardian about."

"Yeah well that too, but mostly I'm disturbed that the cards come back."

"The cards come back but the people don't."

"Yeah," said Tommo.  "It's an undiscovered country, from which no 
traveller returns."

"But you take the tube to work every day."

"Yeah."

"And return home, to the flat where we live. It's not an undiscovered 
country - it's a pub at Canary Wharf."

"Yeah I'm not so sure about that. You see the Oyster cards are like a 
weird psychic token that trancends the finite duration of the journey."

"Right," Tim said.

"So," said Tim, "if different people to us are getting off the train 
today, do they have tickets to the match?"

"Yeah, I reckon so," said Tommo after a moment's thought.

"They better fucken pay me back."

The train pulled into Elephant and Castle.