Whilst riding the tube this evening I was witness to something you don’t see often; a man covered in blood.

Now allow me to quantify that by pointing out that it’s Halloween. Even so, it’s still a little unnerving when the guy who gets on the tube next to you is, indeed, covered in blood.

Did I mention he was covered in blood? Well he was, y’know, covered in blood.

So there we were stood side by side on the packed train as it slowly departed the station. It was then I noticed the reactions of the other people crammed in with our crimson pal, or rather, the lack of them.

Here he stood, covered in the red stuff and no one even bats an eyelid (no pun intended). I guess they all had the same thought as me which was “this guy must have had some sort of Halloween dress up thingy at work today, good for him”.

This lack of blind terror, screaming and uncontrollable sobbing did get me thinking. What if this guy was REALLY covered in REAL blood? What a perfect cover. He seemed so calm and unassuming, but then again aren’t they the ones we should be careful of?

I edged away from him slightly.

Some of the commuters were desperately trying to stare without being too obvious as he was, without question, covered in blood. What fascinated me the most was the way they’d quickly look elsewhere when he made eye contact. I mean, it’s rude to stare, right? And we don’t want to upset the blood soaked stranger do we kids?

Then I wondered; what if today had been a regular day? What if it hadn’t been halloween? Would we have all acted differently? I would’ve certainly filled my trousers with all kinds of nasty, but what about everyone else? Maybe one day I’ll just dress as a zombie and stand on the train at rush hour, dribbling and groaning.

Although I suspect I won’t need to stand with all the empty seats.

But the most amusing, and yet appropriate, reaction was when the train pulled into our destination. There, stood on the platform, was a small oriental girl waiting for the train. She’d obviously positioned herself so that she would be right in front of the sliding doors when they opened.

Perfect.

We all started piling off the train and I was directly behind Mr Bloody so I had a front row seat for what happened next.

As we stepped off the train, the oriental girl looked up and made a face that simply said “what the fucking shit?!?”, complete with wide eyes and even wider mouth. This was accompanied by a sudden and violent sidestep which was clearly a kneejerk reaction not dissimilar to ducking when a pigeon flies at your face.

(Although seeing a pigeon hit someone full on in the face is just a beautiful thing; at least for the spectator and not the person picking beak, shit and feathers out of their mouth)

Her reaction was absolutely priceless. I can still picture it now and I cant stop smiling; It was so bloody funny.

Pun intended.