I expect the masses. The tired faces, too, and the thick coats, and the wet umbrellas. The delays are also foreseeable: Stand clear of the closing doors, chimes the metro man, but not everyone listens. I predict the pushing. I know there will be shoving. The bad breaths, the smelly armpits - all par for the course.
The wind, however, is a surprise. It always is. There I am, up at 8 in the morning, who-knows-how-many feet underground, and there’s wind, hot and heavy, licking my face. It’s different from the one above ground, too, from the normal, foreseeable, expected wind. This one, the tube wind: it shouldn’t be here. It is suffocating, feverish, electrified. It is wind in a bottle, trapped wind, awkward and lethargic, depressed as it slugs its way around the crowded platform, waiting three, two, one minutes for the next train to rush in and bring more wind, a blast of vital air that lasts a Mind the gap and This is a Northern Line train to... And then is gone. The new wind becomes its old, tired self, warm and uncomfortable, while its angrier strands dash down stairs and through tunnels, follow the “Way Out” signs, try to transform themselves, rebel, to join the outside wind - the predictable, normal, foreseeable wind - mad, strong, ravenous. So what greets me when I get off the elevator? Wind. When I sprint my way to the platform? Wind. When I skid towards the rails, jump into a train, feel the doors shut tight behind me? Wind. Wind wind wind. And a hundred other commuters.
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