EMERGENCY TWIX

I’m eating a Twix, wondering whether technically that should be some Twix. But then, I’m not eating them both together, so perhaps I’m just eating a unix, one unix at a time. Unix. That sounds weird.

Well thankfully, I’ve got another ‘unix’ left in the packet. They come in twos you know. Twix.

I’ve gone weird. It’s all the travel, I reckon. I’m waiting for the last train of the day to take me home from the airport. I know from experience that this will take ages (it’s the slow train), so I was quite grateful to reach into my bag and pull out the emergency Twix I’d resisted eating earlier in the week. Well done, Younger Me! You may blow my own trumpet in the future, you hero, you.

There was something uncluttered and unfussy about Edinburgh airport. It took me a while to realise that it was empty of people, and the tranquility of that was suddenly seeping into my soul, like fresh water. Earlier today, someone had asked me whether I liked being alone or spending time with others, and I had paused and talked about the need to alternate. Introverts (I supposed) favour time alone (though not for long) and extroverts like time with people (though not for long) and as such, we all sort of alternate and bounce between the two, like an alternating social current of people who need space and social in equal measure. Well I do. And that’s what I said.

Later, I was dipping and weaving through Edinburgh, shuffling and brushing into strangers’ shoulders, and shimmying out of the melee with a ‘sorry’ every time I accidentally touched a human. I didn’t like it.

I squished onto the tram, bouncing my rucksack into somebody’s armpit and staring up at someone else’s chin. I didn’t like that either.

So it was that the airport turned out to be a weird oasis from the festival crowd. Not many airports are less busy than the city they serve. I had a drink alone at the bar. I mooched through security with the six other people who were flying anywhere from Scotland tonight, and I swept coolly and calmly to my gate, where the huge glass windows gleamed with the last golden rays of the setting sun. Lovely.

And now I’m here back in England, eating a, some, one of two, this, these... lovely Twix and waiting for the last train to pull out. You know, I don’t think a single unix would be enough at moments like this. You need the balance that two give, all the biscuity and chocolatey goodness. I think that’s it: it’s not two unixes in a packet. It’s two halves of a thing that’s whole in two pieces. Deep. And I’m sleep-deprived. And a bit weird.

Sometimes you just need a Twix.