Tunnel (December)

December offers not much more than light at the end of the tunnel. It’s rats alley where rails curve under Jolimont. Wall lamps are caged against smashers. When express services cease ‘mad’ muralists enter the arched cave with spraycans. Filmed with dust, musty after rain, rusty with tins: Victorian redbrick built to last. Bored and drugged, they mark out their initial territory. Sunrise is a sensation by slow degrees. Heavy duty, trains return, a thousand lights at stylish windows. Carriages never stop but for a signal from beyond. ‘Mad’ novelists keep the travellers’ attention, scrolled down with compulsive index finger.