It doesn't take a psychologist to figure this one out ...
December 04, 2002 ~ 12:12 p.m.
I was sitting on the District Line subway train when I heard a rumbling that I did not recognize as the carriages� response to inertia. Before I had time to completely suss out the source of the noise, a huge line of fire catapulted through the carriage. In the split second before it flamed past, I had seen it coming and ducked.
Lying flat against the grimy floor of the train carriage, I was too numb to think about anything other than shielding myself from the ray of fire arcing just a foot or two above me.
The fire shot past and slowly, eventually, I got back on my feet. I was panting heavily, scared witless. Seats were charred and some people were baked into the cushions. The plastic of the straphangers were melting, their polymer molecules dripping the floor.
I attempted to rescue a man whose skin had been burned clean off the left side of his body, blood oozing forth from blackened skin. He was not only alive but conscious. I tried to extricate him from his seat, but he fought me off with a strength that was surprising, given his condition.
�No!� he screamed. �Piss off, it hurts! Get off me!� He started battering me with his arms. Stunned by his reaction, I turned to others who still looked alive, but they also shunned my attempts to help them.
I grabbed the fire extinguisher, and broke through the doors. Jumping off the train, I took a look around the tunnel, the smoke from the wrecked carriages reducing my visibility. I started walking along the opposite track thinking, It�s OK. We only just left Sloane Square, it�s just a few yards ahead. But I kept running and running and suddenly the tunnel split into four separate directions. I had no idea which to take.
As I deliberated where to go, suddenly a huge wave of water appeared from the second offshoot of the tunnel. Knowing the first was beyond my reach, I ducked into the third. I heard another WHOOSH up ahead, backtracked and dived into the fourth tunnel.
Standing in the murky darkness of the new tunnel, I labored for breath, frightened beyond compare, when I heard an explosion and the roof of the tunnel collapsed.
Then I woke up.
I do not normally have nightmares, and this was the most horrifying dream I�ve had for years. What frightens me most of all, however, is the heavy debate going on as to whether London Underground is a possible terrorist target. The Government is undecided as to what to do, what protocol to establish, and just how much information about possible terrorist threats the public ought to be privy to. Now, I don�t think there�d be explosions and broken water mains; it is likely to be a lethal gas attack (I wonder if Al-Qaeda plans to recruit curry-eating soccer hooligans to this aim).
Sure, I can joke about it. That�s what�s known as nervous bravado. But this is serious business. And I�m always a bit terrified.
� M.E.M.
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Copyright � 2001-2007 by M.E. Manning. All material is written by me, unless explicitly stated otherwise by use of footnotes or bylines. Do not copy or redistribute without my permission.
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