trip

On a whim you take the tube. It's hot down there, but you can get your book read, now you've found something you want to read.

As you get up to change at Oxford Circus for the linea centrale, you trip over a large, ugly, plimsolled foot.

For less than a second you have no control over your feet. You totter, bend, weep like a willow. Saved by a yellow pole colliding with an outstretched limb.

The foot grunts some kind of an apology. You turn and catch sight of it, inclined to frown.

In your heart, you are grateful. The ugly foot offered you a moment. A loss of control. For a second there you nearly crashed; you nearly flew.