You are the Ball Cock in the Toilet Tank of Life

She is standing by the counter of the newspaper stall at Vauxhall, waiting for her coffee. She has a mobile phone clasped to her ear, but she is not speaking into it, nor even apparently listening to it. Perhaps she is on hold. Perhaps she just goes around with her phone stuck to her ear as a matter of course. She is not slim, not by a long way. She is blocking the exit. People queue up to buy things, things which don’t require waiting for, like newspapers and then they are stuck, they cannot get out with her there in the way. They say excuse me. She moves out of their way, dreamily, automatically, her phone still clasped to her ear. Then she bobs back into the gap, blocking the exit again, as though it were not of her volition, as though some physical process or law of nature was forcing her to do this. Someone else wishes to leave, and she repeats to process – moving out of the way, bobbing back into the way, regulating the flow of people out of the stall, one by one. I come to the head of the queue and buy my paper, make my excuses and go, leaving her there, still clutching her phone, still waiting, moving and bobbing, moving and bobbing as though she might never stop.

And it was only after I have taken my train and am walking to work that I realised just what it was that she reminded me of.