So I'm doing this Travel Writing course. The tutor, Zoe Bran, has had a few books published, all on miserable socialist countries like Yugoslavia, Vietnam and Cuba so we obviously share ideas on what makes a good holiday location. The main objective of the course is to write a 1500 word 'piece' on the travel destination of our choice. I'm writing about the Krazy Kurdish people I met in the far east of Turkey, and I'll share parts of it as it gets written. In the meantime, here's something that I'd already written. We spent the first lesson talking about what travel writing is (who knows) and what it isn't (guidebooks, stories about holidays and Bill Bryson, for some reason) but right at the end Zoe says "Well, this is a writing course so you're not leaving the lesson without writing something. You all travelled here tonight, so..." she paused as she registered our blank looks "write a hundred words about your journey here!" Could there be anything more mundane than my nightly commute?

Anyway, this is what I came up with.

The first tube pulls up not long after I arrive in the station -- a long tin can ferrying the comatose homewards. The doors open and the crammed bodies expand out the door just a little, possibly to enjoy this brief intake of space, but probably to form a wall stopping anyone else from getting on.

There's room above their heads. If there was an obliging radioactive spider nearby I could cling to the roof. Or I could sprint up to the driver's door, rap authoritatively on the window and enjoy the ride in his first-class comfort.

But the bells chime and the train leaves without me.

Hangover: a haiku
by Andrew Harder

Haze. My computer
Stares me in the face. Work!
It demands. I cannot.

postscript: I later re-read this haiku and realised there are six syllables in the final line. I was still hungover at this point and I got deeply depressed. I can't count up to six! I'm over it now.