How the fuck did I allow myself to get so fat?

Hot damn fucking hell, nothing like a beer belly and a hideous slouch to motivate you to run like you've never run before. No matter that your legs are aching, your knees are giving way and your lungs are on fire....just...keep...running.

Today morning was interesting. After the not-entirely unexpected but still overwhelmingly uncontrollable episode of ennui that was Sunday Night, I woke up surprisingly early and refreshed. I suspect listening to "Hard to Concentrate" over the past few days had something to do with that, so I switched over to a crazy little thing called love.

As I was traipsing my way to the train headed to Chinatown, the same thought that has haunted me for the past couple of months now recurred, I am walking in the belly of the earth, surrounded by hundreds like me, who don't seem to realise, or don't act as if they do, that they are living the very life often portrayed in sci-fi Neo-Metropolis. You know the one where people are essentially living in underground post-apocalyptic hive colonies. Think Kowloon Walled City, but cleaner. I shuddered slightly at the implications.

Ahead, a lady with a short red skirt stands out like a flash of scarlet in a sea of grey. Funny how these things catch your eyes. She wasn't the only one sporting crimson, yet red was now all I saw. And those legs. Those long never-ending legs.

What could I do?

I followed her like the indescribably lustful male that I was. 2 steps behind, never missing a beat (although we did miss the train, but damn was it worth it).

The Japanese have a word for this: Bakku-shan. One look at her face was enough to break me out of my reverie. Cruel and mean-spirited no doubt, but a man's entitled to his own personal thoughts. I'll be damned if I censored myself.

Moving on to the next carriage so I wouldn't have to ruin my mental image of her legs in that skirt, I squeezed in with the morning crowd, and took the opportunity to stare at the faces around me. Soulless and tired, every single last one of them.

I think back to a conversation I had with a taxi driver the day before, on the fact that he couldn't stop renting the taxi, even for a day, and that meant that on Sundays, he made just enough to break even on his rental, then he would return home to spend time with his family.

Staring at the crowd that piled themselves into the subway carriage, I wonder what their stories were? Were they making something new, something more, or were they just trying to break even, because they couldn't stop paying the rent?

So I plugged back my earplugs and closed my eyes.

The show must go on.