Happiness

Routine numbs me and leaves me hypnotised. Monotony makes my eyes glaze over and I look at the world through frosted glass. My mouth slowly drops open and my breathing becomes loud and rhythmic. My ears are tuned to traffic, white noise and the hum of fluorescent lights.

It is Friday and I step off the bus as the sun struggles to come up behind a wall of cloud. The city is just gearing up for another day of the same. I step off the street and down a staircase in to the underground train station of Town Hall, into artificial light and artificial warmth.

But like an oasis to a desert traveller, the monotony suddenly breaks, and the routine is disturbed. Standing before me are about thirty women, with an average age of fifty, all dressed in matching silky red fabric, glittering with sequins. They are organised in three rows, and sway from side to side; out of time with each other, as they earnestly belt out Can You Feel The Love Tonight in warbling falsettos.

Happiness.