81 minutes to Maddening

With one arm in a brace, stitches in his forehead, and having just lost his job as a teacher, Mark wakes up on Friday morning to discover a message from his girlfriend Madeleine informing him that she is now his ex, pregnant, and leaving him to return to Australia. As his car is in for a service and no taxis are immediately available, he catches the Underground Piccadilly Line to Heathrow, believing that the five hours before her flight departs will give him time for the 33 stations and 81 minutes between him and reconciliation with she who he calls Maddening. But the Piccadilly Line is in meltdown and each passing minute sees his hopes of keeping the woman he has determined to marry recede. As he battles signal failures, security alerts and broken wipers he writes notes for his unborn child to read in twenty-one years’ time, the story of how he and YBM (your bloody mother) met, fell in love, and why it wasn’t quite his fault when it went wrong.