Heathrow Anime.....

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I was in London last week. Flew into Heathrow, then train to Paddington followed by the inevitable journey by tube. The tube was hot. I clung to the handrail and watched the tube stations flash past - Bayswater, Notting Hill gate, Kensington High Street, Gloucester Road - my stop - South Kensington - then a short walk in the South Ken sunshine to my hotel.

London was as London is.

In then out with a slight sigh of relief.

Waiting for my flight home - Heathrow again, ‘people watching’ as I always do, the films of their imagined lives running in my head – I saw this young man.

Japanese
Immaculately suited
Beautifully booted
Laptop bag enabled
Manga good looking
Anime smooth skin
Surgically masked

Surgically masked? A suited, good looking, Japanese in a surgical mask at Heathrow… that seems strange…

I don’t usually take candid shots of people but on this occasion I decided to make an exception. I carefully removed my phone from my pocket. He wasn’t looking. I set the phone to camera… I pressed the button.

What was he doing? Why was he making those strange gestures with his hands, passing them to and fro? What was that coming out of his bag? No, it couldn’t be… a small glowing red orb rose out of his laptop bag and for a second hung, suspended, in the air. It moved slowly back and forth for a second or two and then… ZING… it flashed up into the young man’s face and disappeared into his forehead. Whatever it had been was now inside his brain!

I sat there open mouthed as he turned towards me.

His eyes glowed red as he fixed me with a piercing stare. Just for a second I could swear that I saw the steely shine of metal just beneath his skin and the shimmer of lightening in his hair. He smiled at me, picked up his bag, and walked rapidly away leaving behind the smell of electricity in the air.

I felt like I’d just been in a story in a Japanese Manga comic.

Perhaps I had.