Unread pages — life’s greatest temptation; I sit on a train, in a world of my own. Warm coat, felt hat, a ducks-head umbrella — the steel of the sky plays chess with my mind. A book and bouquet, does life get any better? Fireplace and slippers are favorites of mine. Before me a journey, to where does not matter, for I am alone, I’ve been left behind.
A makeshift family enters my carriage, their cursing and spluttering draws my eyes from the page. Their costumes are brash and their piercings unsightly but I’ve come prepared for the wars that they wage. I’ve kept time in my pocket for just such an occasion and wisely I spend it as this circus unfolds.
‘He’s not getting a fucking Easter present until I get the results of the DNA test.’
The child clutches his toy.
‘I’m telling you he is yours ya cockhead, he looks just like you.’
‘He doesn’t look like me you stupid bitch. He looks like Kevin.’
Kevin, it transpires, is the child’s uncle.
My attention slips quietly to the face of this cherub, wearing innocence without effort, like a smudge on his cheek. I glance surreptitious, at his lips as they tremble; I crawl through his eyes and into his soul. It’s getting darker in here with each aching moment and I search for some way to bring back the light. In this morass of contention, is this fate I wonder, that has caught me this moment so clearly defined. With a tear I slide out of this opportune window, down a cheek that is chubby to a seat that’s now cold. But what can I give him, this youngster, like Kevin — a smile, so simple, for which he must yearn. Though I’ve given many, on my misguided travels, more than all others, I pray this one’s returned. In this transaction, this gift that is giving, recognition occurs and our futures collide. Forgotten by ferals fighting over his fathering, he scrambles across and he sits by my side. What does he see in my visage now open? A face that is crinkled, all covered with lines? A weathered exterior? A withering spine?
In my head I am thinking where the hell’s the conductor, this altercation is hurting my brain. In my heart I am feeling for just one more minute, like a long lovely chapter, I want him to remain. I so want to show him this world that I live in but I know that my voice would draw others eyes. I must be patient, ’til destiny finds me, for I’m just a writer who is trapped in this guise. Tears flow, voices rise, the trains lurches forward, passenger’s bristle and avert angry eyes.
I find I think best in iambic pentameter, the feet of my words march a very strict time. But I’m not at my best under all of this pressure so if I start to sink will you throw him a line? For by now you’re well versed in this world that is fiction — If I give you the boy will you help him to shine?
In this sea of humanity they are lost and they wander these brave little soldiers who circumstance blights. There are some words, perhaps you have heard them — “The world’s greatest symphony starts with only one note.” Of course you could give him some words that are spoken, but how much more potent are words that you wrote. I would marshal your thoughts , you whose souls have been captained, you who reflect, and seek to inspire. For you’ve volunteered for a difficult mission, the influence you wield will change other’s lives.
The train pulls in to an unmanned station, with a rumble and screech we start to decline. The world exits quickly through doors that spring open, sharing cheap pity with a nod and a smile. Thoughts flutter like butterflies in the boy’s confused conscience, and I try to catch them as by me they fly. They are too fragile, flimsy, and whimsical but fate’s faint fingerprints, on them I spy. I exit the train with an unlikely comrade; I feel quite at home tucked under his arm, but I did not account for his weasel like parent and so when he spoke it caused me alarm.
“Put that fucking thing down, you don’t know where it’s been.”
The boy looks to his mother
“Jesus you prick, let him keep it, it’s free.”
For those that would willfully wallow on welfare, there is an obsession with things of no price. And though I am grateful for her intervention, at least some acknowledgement of my worth would be nice. I would ask your forgiveness for polluting this story with blasphemous language and characters’ vile, but let me assure you the father, who’s fickle, despite the results, stays only a while.
We hide with a book, tucked under his covers; the gimlet-eyed teddy takes his place next to mine. She’s dressed him snugly in flannelette pajamas that have been put through the dryer, when they came off the line.
‘I told you to turn that frigging light off, we’re not made of money’
Now I’ve come to like his querulous mother, my faith reaffirmed by her partner less fight. She’s covered her piercings, gotten rid of her nose ring, and I think that she knows he reads through the night. He tiptoes quietly cross boards that are spotless; obediently reaches to turn off the light, pops back into bed with a grin that’s precocious, triumphantly brandishing his tank engine torch. Immersed in these worlds of fantasy and action, through books he will live when his life is unkind. A cradling dawn floats through his window, whispering lullabies that weigh his lids down; I catch a glimpse of his dreams as their forming when this somnolent sibilance opens his mind.
Me, he will save ’til late adolescence, as yet he’s too young to decipher my words. I am but a comfort to this boy that has little and I’ll spend much time by his pillow at night. One day he will find that I come in handy, alone in his room he’ll rehearse every line. Teardrops and dogs ears bless all of my pages, for much lies beneath this jacket of mine. I am a book preserved through the ages, defined as it were by meter and rhyme. I am revered by sophists and sages but I must warn you, I am rarely contrite.
He sits on the platform at the station in Clayton; a warm breeze politely prods him to life. He’s on his way to his first day at Uni, rubbing sleep from his eyes he adjusts to the light.
‘Hi’
He waits for his consciousness to catch up with reality, in a race that is ponderous and far from refined. With a blush he illuminates his moment of panic, and swipes at the curls that fall cross his eyes. Frantically he turns to my page as he fumbles, scrambling for dignity and words of a kind. Be brave now young man and you will find solace, in places my words can only outline. In a heart that is golden, open and lovely, in a comforting hand, an enquiring mind; someone like her who is hopeful and brimming, and nervously stands in her hole-riddled tights.
‘What are you reading?’
‘The young man raises his eyes.
Unread pages — life’s greatest temptation; I sit on a train, in a world of my own. Before me a journey, to where does not matter, for I am alone, I’ve been left behind.
