In The Tunnels of Time - Priorities.

I’m sitting in someone’s office in a building in the middle of a chemical plant.

Someone is sitting opposite me at his desk and we are working together on some of the complexities of the English language.

To my left is a door, on my right is a window and although I am concentrated and professional my eye is aware of what is going on outside the window.

Blue sky, a few wispy clouds drifting lazily away and a weekend gathering momentum.

We speak a bit more.

Suddenly an alarm sounds and I notice people running outside.

I look across the desk at someone who seems more concerned about the present perfect tense and it’s usage.

“Do we need to worry about that?” I ask.

“No, we only need to worry if there is a second alarm, that was just the routine alarm for the first-aiders.”

Hmmm, good English, I thought, all I was able to offer was a translation for the French word he had used at the end of the sentence.

At that point the second alarm sounded.

He jumped up – “I have to go, I’m one of the rescue team, you know what to do don’t you?”

I looked at him, probably like a startled rabbit would – “No”.

He seemed shocked, apparently visitors shouldn’t be granted access without a full knowledge of assembly and evacuation procedure.

“It depends which way the wind is blowing.” – he said.

He called the guy from the office across the corridor and asked him to look after the rabbit and then ran off.

I packed up my gubbins and then followed said guy to a corner of the site where people had gathered, about 200 of them and from which we had a clear view of the black smoke billowing across the aforementioned blue sky and wispy weekend.

We also had a clear view of the fire engines as they sped past following the security guy furiously pedalling on his bike leading the way.

Some time passed.

I looked around.

I recognised a few faces and a lot of strangers.

And then I noticed something.

Everyone was carrying a very professional looking gas mask.

Everyone!

But one.

Me.

I didn’t have a gas mask.

I suddenly really wanted a gas mask.

Why hadn’t the guy given me a gas mask?

“Can I get one of those?” I asked someone I had recognised.

“Don’t you have one?”

“No, i'm English.”

“Hey, look, he hasn’t got a gas mask,” she said to her neighbour.

Suddenly there was a guy speaking through a megaphone.

“Look, he hasn’t got a gas mask”, he said pointing in my direction.

And  then everyone took a large step away.

We stood like this for two hours.

The guy with the megaphone did a roll call.

Smoke drifted.

People ran.

No one gave me a gas mask.

I wanted a gas mask.

12 o’clock arrived.

Suddenly a trestle table appeared.

Then bottles of wine, and crisps.

“There’s an aperitif,” shouted the guy through the megaphone, and everyone rushed to the table.

Priorities.

unless you count tomorrow, which won't be here -  but there - this marks the end of Open Day at The Tunnels.