I returned to Balham for the first time in over four months. I was going to play Risk at my friend Simon's house, with Simon and two other mid-thirty something men who should know better.
Balham was my home for over five years and yet already it has that strange familiar unfamiliarity of a place that you feel you may have once visited in a dream, but have never actually been to.
It was even slightly unsettling to be on the southern section of the Northern Line heading south. My underlying anxiety was slightly relieved by the fact that in the seats opposite me a grey-haired, middle-aged and slightly dishevelled white man had fallen asleep and his head was lolling against the shoulder of a younger, slightly hard looking black man.
It was an amusing sight and everyone on my side of the carriage giggled and smiled at the younger man, and he in turn smiled back at us all. He was trying to avoid the physical contact, whilst still being considerate enough not to wake the man up or push him away.
It is strange that tiny events like this can bring people together on a tube and have them communicating, if only non-verbally.
We all got out at our stops smiling at this rather touching piece of real life.
Though the younger man moved seats as soon as a spare place was available.
No-one woke the man, which was probably annoying for him when he woke up in Morden, having wanted to be in Clapham or Tooting.
The strange dream like state returned as I went up the escalator and emerged by the ticket hall that I used to pass almost every day for all that time. I realised how little I had thought of Balham since the move and how surprisingly little I had missed it.
The once opera-singing tramp was still perched on the top step on the way out of the station. Looking more gaunt and more ill than I remembered. All the songs seemed to have left him. He was with some friends, one male one female. The male one was sitting by the florist shop, near to a small pool of sick.
It made me sad.
But at least he wasn't alone.
I emerged into a dusky Balham and it hadn't changed much in the few months I've been away. Something seemed different though.
I realised it was me.
