Kate pushed herself forward, fighting against every sense inside her body that was telling her to run away, very far away. She had to get to work on time at least once this week.

The tube was literally that. A tube of metal crammed full of so many bodies it was impossible to squeeze any more in. But working in London for the last five years, she had learned that waiting for the next one at 8.30 in the morning was a pointless exercise. They were all just as full. So many humourless people, ears plugged, eyes glazed and contactless standing closer to you than you would ever normally allow. So she squeezed herself in, just before the doors closed with a frustrated ping.

There were strict unwritten rules on the underground. There had to be. There was no other way to be OK with someone’s arm pit squashed up against your nose.
No eye contact.
No speaking.
No acknowledgement in any way of your fellow human beings.

She’d only ever once had a conversation on the Central Line. For a nano-second she’d sat on the lap of an older women as the train jolted forward after a stop.

‘So sorry,’ Kate had said,
‘Don’t worry’ the woman had replied with a Scottish accent, ‘These trains are so packed.’

They ended up talking about the weather, as Scots do, while the rest of the carriage remained robotic. No-one acknowledged the small revolution happening in carriage 5. They couldn’t break ranks.

Kate turned the volume up on her iTunes. A random playlist of every song she had ever downloaded. Her hand grasped tightly on the only space available on the clammy metal post. Three sweaty hands above her and one below. She couldn’t stand this anymore. Just as she was about to let out a full rib cage of a scream, the track changed to a song she hadn’t heard in a million plays. ‘Going Home’ by Runrig. A Scottish folk rock band she’d been to see in concert many times. At Edinburgh Castle, on the banks of Loch Lomond, in the Union in Aberdeen. Now they were old and had long ago stopped making records. But the opening chords touched her heart. Gaelic twists of sound. Soft, not guttural, despite the bag pipes, whispers of ancient strings. The crescendo rose.

“In the distance day was dawning,

Comes to me the early morning,

Something tells me that I’m going home”

Calm flowed over her from ear-pod to trainer sole. Peace. Her body may be crammed into a steel tube rattling along ancient tracks 50 feet underground, but her mind was flying up the East coast of Scotland towards dawn. She could see the day dawning, in all its pinks and yellows and mauves, over the moorlands, the sun rising up past the mountains. She was flying across the fields of heather to where the crags dropped boldly down to inlets of velvet sand. Inaccessible except by Puffins and Herring Gulls. Powerful waves rolled in past protective volcanic stone, their foam weaving a tapestry on the shore.

Her mind’s eye flew out towards the lighthouse perched on the furthest sharpest point of rock. From there she could see all the way up the coast to the tiny fishing village, its colourful boats bobbing to the rhythm of the roaring sea, even in the most sheltered water.

‘Something tells me that I’m going home,’ the singer sang again

I wish. She whispered. The carriage ignored her muttering.

‘Oxford Circus’ announced the automatic announcer, ‘Change here for the Bakerloo and Victoria Lines.’

Kate shuffled forward, stepping off the train with all the other robotons.

She wasn’t going home just yet.