Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER
My stomach aches, my feet are heavy. I hold onto the railings and squeeze hard, using my grip to balance me. I look at the sea of people on the floor below me rushing to get home. Rushing to meet friends and lovers. Dragging toddler’s home from day care. I’m caught in a panic. I can’t go forward and I can’t turn around. The people behind me tut and grunt as they are forced to go around me but I can’t bring myself to move my feet. I get a hit from a shoulder pushing past me. It hurts and sends me off balance for a moment. I apologise after the man who is quickly lost to me and doesn’t hear my words. I’m stuck…
Someone pushes past me again and I feel the disgust on their breath. I know I am in the way. I know I need to move but I struggle to release my grip.
After too long, I don’t know how many minutes, I take my toe and push it out over the step. I slowly, painfully push it down over the edge reaching out like a person in the dark. Reaching to see if there is ground beneath me. I transfer my weight down onto the step below and with it my body follows. I am not in control, I am in the hands of gravity. It is pulling me down. Disgust has spurred me on. Disgust from the stranger, disgust from people passing me by and now lost in the crowd, disgust of my own inability to move. But disgust has shifted me forward and I do start to move. Moving down the stairs. Down into the crowd beneath me.