The most frightening thing I can possibly imagine, the thing that wakes me up in the middle of the night in cold sweats because I have had another nightmare, the thing that forces me to run screaming from the room if I see it on TV or leads me to tear apart a newspaper if ever I see a photo in a news story. That thing, not blood, not clowns, not the likely prospect of ending my days as a slightly less evil version of Dickens’ Miss Havisham is spiders. When asked, as I am at least once a day, why I chose to move to France, I always give the same half true, half smartarse-do-you-think-you-are-the-first-person-to-ask-me-that-question-today answer, because I am scared of spiders and there are no spiders in France. *
It therefore goes without saying that I would endure just about anything to avoid ever coming face to face (or skin to skin) with a spider. Never one to do anything by halves, I even went as far as to voluntarily leave everything I know, my friends, my family, cheddar cheese, sunshine and Vegemite just to get as far away as possible from those eight legged freaks.
If, in some dark real life version of one of those gothicky, black, psychologically damaging David Fincher films like Se7en or Fight Club I could be granted one wish in exchange for having a spider placed upon my naked hand for 2 minutes (let’s not go crazy here, I am not going to let the bastard take a stroll up my arm), I can tell you exactly what I would ask for, in an instant, no reflection needed, no 10 seconds thinking time, or ‘are you sure that is your final answer’ required. It is dead simple. I would ask to never have to take the Metro or it’s savage English cousin, The Tube, ever, ever again, ‘til death us do part, so help me God.
Waiting on the Lego bumps...
Hailing as I do, from Sydney, a city with relatively poor public transport services, I wholly appreciate the convenience of the Parisian underground train network. In the wee hours of many a morning, I have been grateful for that open-armed bottle-green and amber-lamped Art Nouveau arch and her Siren Call, come down here, I’ll take you home. More often than not in fewer than two line changes, more often than not, speedily, safely and securely. More often than not…
Art Nouveau in Abbesses
A funny thing happens when man is confined to a network of underground tunnels. Down there, in the dingy, dark and sooty air, all the norms of etiquette, social order and basic humanity remain above in the golden warmth of the sunlight as we descend into a shaky subterranean New World Order. As on Orwell’s farm, we become animals, animals that would spit upon one another for the right to slide in before the doors close, animals that would happily force an elderly woman to the ground in exchange for a spot on the 8.59am line 9 to Pont de Sevres. Animals.
The leonine King of the underground jungle is Mr My-Back-Is-To-You-So-I-Ignore-You. At just that moment when the vestibule can longer support the weight, or more importantly the breadth, of another human being, at just that moment when the doors sound their death knell alarm of closure, Mr MBITYSIIY jumps onto the train, his back to the crowd within, forcing the handbag of the woman in front to dissect your spleen and jamming your right heel into the crotch of the person behind. He, oblivious to the ensuing carnage, stares, nonchalantly beyond the glass doors, looking out into the tunnel, blissfully ignorant.
Much like the heavy reptilian presence of a Saharan rhinoceros is the immovable grey stature of Ms I-Am-Not-Standing-Up-Even-If-Your-Bum-Is-Pressed-To-My-Left-Cheek. In order to provide standing room when the trains are overcrowded during peak hour, the vestibules of Parisian Metros are fitted with ‘strapontins’, a hinged seat designed to flip down when there are few enough people to allow for extra seating and flip up when the whole of French humanity is jammed in for their morning journey to work. Ms IANSUEIYBIPTMLC remains seated, in silent protest, even when you are hooked over her like a circus contortionist to grip the rail behind her bowed head. Like the protesters of Occupy London, she will not be moved, like the protesters of Occupy Wall Street, she is usually young enough to be in high school. Like most people her age, she is plugged into her phone, texting, listening to music, unaware of the world beyond her little LED screen.
The Pushers. Not at all a group of people that walk between the carriages to peddle illicit drugs, although I am sure they do exist even if I’ve never seen them, The Pushers are fluoro-vested, white-gloved employees of the RATP. Their mission, should they wish to accept it, during the afternoons, usually on the Cattle Train line 13 to St Denis, is to push people into the trains during peak-hour. The brainchild of the good folk of Tokyo, The Pushers are there to ensure the train doesn’t leave with the arm of a small child flailing wildly beyond the safe harbour of the doors.
A Pusher awaits
Children. The young of our above-ground world are curly topped, cute, cherubic angels smiling at you from underneath their fur-trimmed parkas, happy to be awake, happy to be moving about, happy to be little enough to laugh out loud for no reason without eliciting stares from their older counterparts. They are strong, robust and protected by the downy cocoons of their winter coats. Why then do they need the safety of a seat when an elderly/pregnant/disabled person is wavering unsteadily right beside them?
Troubadours. Usually hailing from lands beyond l’Hexagone, the Troubadours seek to ease the sweaty tension of your journey with a Little Night Music (or any other synthesised version of your favourite classic). Any two-bit musician with an accordion, an amplifier and a shaky show tune can make a buck or twelve from the tourists who have not yet tired of hearing La Vie En Rose on every street corner. The Troubadours would indeed be a welcome addition to the time spent in transit if only they could actually sing…in tune.
The Arms. Detached from the bodies to which they belong, The Arms are a series of long, unwieldy, hairy male arms that cling to the central poles in each vestibule. During times of high passenger traffic, The Arms materialise from a nether world, even deeper than the Metro itself, a world that is cursed with a lack of soap, a lack of deodorant, a lack of basic personal hygiene. The Arms have a unique talent for always realising their disembodied presence just above the olfactory glands of your nose, forcing you to inhale the smells of a hundred unwashed armpits, the stench of a hundred unwashed days all while you struggle with your hangover and the immediate involuntary need to vomit.
Beware the apparition of The Arms
The Urinator. Like his namesake, the Austrian-born California resident Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Urinator is an omnipotent, omnipresent being blessed with a God ordained responsibility to take his powers to places beyond those from whence he came.
Due to the underground lime walls from within which the Metro was carved, there is constant seeping moisture that spreads a Dalian surrealist sculpture of calcium fungus across the tiled roofs of the tunnels, a moisture resulting in the need for trough-like ditches dug in against the walls where they meet the station platforms. A trough that the Urinator is obliged to fill with the golden issue of his bladder, for his urine is so special and holy that it cannot be confined to the sewers of his home like ordinary common men. Spreading for time eternal an ammoniac stink increasing the array of nasal assaults to be found in the underground world of the Metro.
Surreal Stalactites and Stalagmites
It is true that time spent pressed against the humid skin of strangers in transit does at least allow the mind to wander and the imagination to run wild.
An arrow points the way down
*Pedants, I know that this statement is not entirely true, but at least in Francalia spiders are confined to the wooded wilds beyond Ile-De-France. They don’t camp out on your kitchen walls and they certainly aren’t giant, black and furry.
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