SHADOWS LEFT BEHIND

"Eh...excuse me..."
smiled the Neanderthal
on the Circle Line

he wanted to know
where
to get off

"How come I can
understand you?"
I asked without talking

"Oh I took a course
ages ago now
in Telepathy As A Foreign Language."

he wanted to see
his girl
a pretty Denisovan

who was staying
with a palaeontologist
at South Ken or something

he had bought her
a Divje Babe flute as
she dug the pentatonic scale

told me he had been
working in
the Mousterian stone-tool industry

he saw that I was
reading about muons
of all things

"How can you possibly
know about wobbling muons?"
I asked in wild surprise

"Oh when one is
you know...dead
one knows about everything!"

he smirked
"For the snark was
a muon you know!"

told me he was
a big Lewis Carroll fan
as it goes

"May the 5th Force
be with you!"
he deadpanned

"Holy incredulous questioning Quark!"
I exclaimed in
a Batman/Robin tone

but his stop
was coming up and
I told him where to get off

"MIND THE GAP!"
the tannoy warned him
"MIND THE GAP!"

Slán...slán go deo!"
he waved to me
switching to the Irish

"Is  fearr an tsláinte
ná táinte!"
he offered as a parting

"DOORS CLOSING
DOORS...CLOSING!"
the tannoy butted in

and he was gone
from my sight as if
I had only imagined him

back into the depths
of a time I
could not conceive of

chewing a mammoth
sandwich and looking
for an exit