Dedicated to my girlfriend Mr. Chen
(London - Stratford 2003)


"I don't mind the gap" she confirmed quite stating the
obvious according to the way she threw herself out of the
tube not even noticing the gap.
"He is 17 years older indeed" she continued while her
eyebrows made a quick lift up creating some deep wrinkles on
her forehead. "Yet, that, doesn't seem to be the problem,
the problem is that..." she paused, slightly moved her head
rightwards where her friend intensively was trying to unwrap
her "snickers." "That men... men are bad for humanity, I am
legitimately and legally classified a human being, thus men
are bad for me." She added with an intense and puzzled
expression scattered all over her face. I could see her
breast rising up as if making a deep sigh. Hence, they
smiled to each other, giggled quite loudly, and went out of
the tube station.
When the next train arrived, my suspicious and investigative
eyes carefully scanned the flow of people landing at the
Victorian station of London tube. Among the arrivers were a
few young ladies, rather unfamiliar and to a certain extent
fairly uncommon. One of them, a beautiful girl,
approximately 15 years aged, with silkily smooth hair tied
by a black crunchie, carried a six pointed plain star on her
breast. Upon some speculation I could picture her whole life
through this star. I could witness her amusing past, her
unanticipated present and threatening future sparkling out
of this star. As if she was stepping out of society,
marching on her own escorted by her personal ideological
habits. This afternoon event made me ponder of the gap
between the real you and the way you are perceived by your
surrounders.  
As I looked around my glimpse bumped into Jack and Jill, a
crazy couple that constantly make love on the filthy floor
of the tube station at 11 p.m. sharp, assuming no one can
see them. Jill, who is a former Catholic preacher, occupies
most of his time loving Jack and writing his PhD in
paleontology and Jack... well...Jack, she is a hooker. When
Jill met Jack (it was 15th of October 1999) if I recall
correctly, in this very tube station, she came with a
package of a little baby girl, Anna, who is a product of a
few bottles of cheap alcohol and 5 years old condom. Jill,
of course, living in his imaginary world of fantasies,
doesn't have a slight idea of it. He has never considered a
possibility of anything like that to be true. He has never
considered the gap flanked by the true reality and the one
created by his illusions.
On the left corner of the station lazed homeless Samuel, AKA
the beggar of the neighborhood. In his inconsistent nature
the only constant aspect of his life was the ritual of
awakening and falling asleep with 20 minutes intervals,
which totally conceal the gap between life and dream.    
At the Victorian tube station in London it seems like
everybody is always in a rush. Whether it is running - to
work, to grab some food at lunchtime, or to hug your love
ones.  Three things which ultimately seize the greater part
of your life. Life - which incidentally is filled with gaps.
All kinds of gaps actually - small gaps, big gaps,
imaginative gaps. And it has been my job for 20 past years
to warn people not to fall into these gaps, to mind the
gaps, consider them empirical obstacles creating false and
apposite doubts. I have spent 20 melancholy years of my life
saving the humanity, growing older in disbelief, aging daily
- the proof of what I do not appreciate seeing in a mirror.


And now ladies and gentlemen, if you don't mind I have got
job to do.

"This train has terminated at Victorian Station, please mind
the gap... please mind the gap..."  

"If you can't be a good example, you'll have to be a
horrible warning"    
Gwen Goodnight