The Big Smoke

May 19th 2026

Dear You,

I went to the Big Smoke. It was a descent into the Underground. Green and freshly unfurled from months and months of the dark wet winter. I was a little soft around the edges, wide eyed and alert. I descended into the depths of the earth, escalating below the hum of shops, banks and restaurants.

Everyone sleeps so close to one another in the city, separated only by concrete walls … dreams interwoven in tangled cables or webs of thought, subconscious memories and dimensional processing.

I stood within the Tube, 26 metres below sea level. I was in close proximity to more humans than I sometimes see in a day. My Lino printed art of people absorbed with their little Black Mirrors were coming to life… the organic roots were replaced by the electric cables that run along the subterranean train tunnels.

I was beginning to feel wired.

Everyone wearing clothes of dull colours, à uniform of conformity, staring downwards into the little screens, swiping, liking, buying. There’s signal in the Underworld. No discretion…no thought of privacy, we gave that away as they mined deeply for our data. The sound of the train’s wheels grinding on the rails produced a screech that emanated Hell, it galloped in unnerving dissonance, clapping and intensifying like a beat that’s about to drop, raising my blood pressure to à level of anxiety. A subterranean instrument creating the soundtrack of Discordia.

Wow - how is no one reacting to this ?

Still transfixed and looking downward, I observed as the bodies of the addicted denizens of cyberspace slowly morphed into crooked necked mammals, ‘Tech Neck’ or ‘hyperkyphosis’ it’s called. We are buried with the skeletal evidence of the Silicon Age.

London is psychedelic, London is an altered state.

To survive the city you need a shield to protect your senses.

I am not of this world.

Forever hedge dwelling edge-dweller. I belong nowhere, and everywhere.

Will they try to colonise our dreams next?

I remain most humbly your loyal friend

Erin

X

p.s www.erinmacairt.bigcartel.com

p.p.s new stockist of cards (and t-shirts coming soon) in Forest Row - ‘Days BnR’