Only a barrister could describe a man sneezing on the Tube like this

Ironically, it went viral

A Littleton Chambers barrister’s homage to a mighty sneeze-stifler on his morning commuter has gone totally viral, garnering more than 9,000 retweets and 46,000 likes.

The Twitter thread in question came courtesy of Jamie Susskind, a first-class Oxford graduate and the son of well-known futurologist Richard Susskind (the man who wrote The End of Lawyers?). It followed the young barrister’s more-eventful-than-usual commute into work:

I took the tube to work this morning at rush hour. It was absolutely mobbed. Carnage. You know the drill. Queues of anxious commuters waiting to board. TFL guy yelling incoherently about the doors.

— Jamie Susskind (@jamiesusskind) January 25, 2018

Managed to squeeze on. The usual smell of bad breath and shower gel.

— Jamie Susskind (@jamiesusskind) January 25, 2018

There's normally a sort of blitz spirit on these occasions. Dark humour. How can there not be, when you can literally smell what the person next to you had for dinner last night?

— Jamie Susskind (@jamiesusskind) January 25, 2018

Yes, we know, sounds like a bog-standard rush hour commute. And it was, until:

But today was different. The crowd was tetchy. There had been some jostling on the platform, and the odd (half-embarrassed) cry of "move DOWN". When I boarded, a lady with a strong Liverpudlian accent had started yelling at the guy next to her for squashing her arm.

— Jamie Susskind (@jamiesusskind) January 25, 2018

So we're barrelling along between stations, and we are squeezed in TIGHT. Barely able to move my head, I turn my head and look to the right.

What I see there chills me to my very core.

— Jamie Susskind (@jamiesusskind) January 25, 2018

So what was it that Susskind — who in 2016 featured on the Hottest Junior Barristers List — saw? Well:

About three feet away, there's a small bloke standing with his back to the door. Must be 16/17 years old. He is truly hemmed in, arms locked to his side, his wee head like the end of a sausage poking out of a hot dog. And the look on his face is one of sheer terror.

— Jamie Susskind (@jamiesusskind) January 25, 2018

His eyes are wide. His nostrils are flared. He's moving the top of his mouth in a circular motion and frantically crinkling and uncrinkling his nose.

The poor bastard is about to sneeze.

— Jamie Susskind (@jamiesusskind) January 25, 2018

Unfortunately for our unwitting soon-to-be sneezer, attempts to suppress the urge aren’t working. “He’s trying his best,” Susskind concedes, “but I can see that he is ultimately powerless. Like a gathering storm, the sneeze cannot be resisted. It is a force of nature.” The thread continues:

I enter a state of high alertness. On a quick calculation I reckon that I am outside of the immediate blast radius, and so am probably safe. But there must be five people in direct danger. Five grumpy commuters. One of them is Angry Scouse Lady.

— Jamie Susskind (@jamiesusskind) January 25, 2018

In the microsecond before the sneeze comes, I lock eyes with the guy. He looks at me like a man who has been sent to the gallows. I try to look sympathetic.

— Jamie Susskind (@jamiesusskind) January 25, 2018

I can still see it in slow motion. It begins as a sort of spasm deep down inside the guy, an irrepressible wave of energy building from his abdomen, spreading up through his chest and neck, rushing to burst out through his nose.

— Jamie Susskind (@jamiesusskind) January 25, 2018

The teenager’s head jerking back and Angry Scouse Lady’s eyes widening, a deafening, powerful and, um, wet sneeze seems inevitable. But read on:

But at the very moment of climax, the instant when I thought my fellow Londoners would be covered in nasal debris, something incredible happened. I'll remember it til the day I die.

— Jamie Susskind (@jamiesusskind) January 25, 2018

His jaw clamped shut, our man somehow takes the full brunt of the sneeze internally. His entire face – cheeks and upper neck area – expand outward like a bullfrog before rapidly contracting again. He emits two noises simultaneously: a high-pitched squeak and a deep, gutteral moan

— Jamie Susskind (@jamiesusskind) January 25, 2018

It was LOUD. Half the carriage crane to look. No one knows what's going on. The guy's eyes are half-closed and streaming with moisture. Were it not for the passengers propping him up, he'd have collapsed from the effort.

— Jamie Susskind (@jamiesusskind) January 25, 2018

I've never seen anything like it. It brought to mind a story I saw recently where a dude ruptured his throat trying to suppress a sneeze (https://t.co/q6blRD2F1k)

— Jamie Susskind (@jamiesusskind) January 25, 2018

After a few seconds he opened his eyes and we again acknowledged each other's presence. He must have seen the admiration on my face because he gave me an imperceptible nod – regal, magnanimous – modestly recognising the scale of his achievement, but without wishing to gloat

— Jamie Susskind (@jamiesusskind) January 25, 2018

That guy is my morning hero, and I wrote this thread in homage to him.

— Jamie Susskind (@jamiesusskind) January 25, 2018

It’s a rollercoaster ride perhaps reminiscent of some of the employment, commercial and public disputes Susskind encounters in his practice, and it’s captured the attention of the public. Alongside tens of thousands of likes and retweets, the thread has attracted comments including “that really has made me cry with laughter” and “this has to be the tweet thread of the year so far“. Bravo, Susskind.