Mystery

Tuesday, 6 pm, London. More than 11,000 tube workers, members of the tube union (?) walked out to protest plans to robotize some 800 jobs. The strike is meant to continue for over 24 hours, till Thursday morning. Over ground traffic increased, many folks learned how to use their feet in ways long forgotten and buses were overloaded.

Wednesday morning, 8:00 am, still London. Hillel arrives in the midst of rush hour to one of the main lines to find out that it is not shut completely. Rather, the stops where no connections between different lines meet are completely skipped and a couple of the main lines are not running at all.

Enjoying the experience of being in London, H doesn’t pay much attention to the rather sour mood of many of the fellow passengers. Due to the onslaught of people, he misses the first one he tries to get on. For maybe the first time in the UK, he has to push his way onto a train. Eventually, many people get of and H gets an actual seat. A well dressed man sits next to him and starts chatting with him.

Now this is pretty rare in the tube, where most people seem to carry with them glass boxes which block out all others peeping into their private space and accidentally knocking their bags. But still, H engages. The man asks H about the tube strike and what his reaction was to it when he heard it will be happening. Did he get upset and annoyed or did he just go on his regular plans as usual?

H is wondering whether to tell the man that he actually doesn’t live in London but rather in Cardiff, that capital city in the well shaded areas away from the English limelight. But instead he simply responds that he just went along with his plans. No point in getting annoyed, transit can still be made and a bit of delay will not affect things greatly. The man proceeded to chat more, to which H responded with short yes’s and no’s. At this point the man turns to H and says, why do I feel that for some reason you work in mathematics?

H is a bit shocked. Huh? What in his answers gave that away? Was this man following him? Did a math paper leak out of H’s bag? Huh again? The man begins to explain. H gets up as the train has arrived at his station and the man gets up with him, they both exit as the man begins explaining. Suddenly he looks around and says, wait, this is not my station, and runs back into the train.

Mystery unsolved.