Category Archives: Short Story

Sad Dream

I had a sad dream last night. It was really like a film, so I wrote down the end of it, as a screenplay. I think it was mostly caused by watching Black Narcissus and the woman in it really talked like Deborah Kerr, so I’ve called her Deborah. The first part was all chases and running away, but this was how it ended.

“I have a memory of an alternative reality…..”

Train

Working in News can be difficult. You listen to stories all day, most of them depressing. Some of them stay with you and some of them disappear inside without a trace. Leaving work and joining the wandering tourists outside you can experience your emotions like a wine-tasting. Sadness, pity, an aftertaste of anger that’s hard to get rid of. But today I’m thinking about what happened yesterday afternoon, a story about me.

I was traveling in to work on the train, listening to 9 on my iPod. The window was really clean, for once there was no graffiti on it, and everything outside was lit with the low, clear sunlight you get on a perfect autumn day.

At Loughborough Junction a woman got on and sat nearly opposite me. I could see, out of the corner of my eye, that she was dressed sleekly, all in black, with straight dark hair in a bob. I was about to glance over at her, but then I decided not to. I always look at attractive women, what’s the point? Isn’t it better just to be glad she’s there?

A moving pool of sun was lighting up her hands as she got out her book. I could see the reflection clearly in the window, superimposed on the moving city outside. It was a hardback novel, her hands were graceful, holding the book carefully. The building sites looked sharp and intense, everything seemed so real. I was finding it really hard not to look at her and it looked like she was glancing up at me. Maybe she could tell.

The way that tower blocks move past when you’re on a train listening to sad music is so achingly, cinematically perfect. Damien Rice was singing Does he drive you wild, or just mildly free? and now she had put down her book and was looking straight at me. I was desperately searching the landscape for beautiful things to look at: open windows, someone ironing, broken cars, flags. Maybe I looked like a tourist, someone who’s never seen a big city before.

Now we were slowing down for Elephant and Castle. She put her book away, stood up and went and stood in the lobby by the door. We both knew it was over, but she was still looking at me and I was stupidly staring at the platform. As she got out I shut my eyes and only opened them when the doors closed and we pulled away.

I felt a tear running down my nose as we passed the new Palestra building in Union Street. For the first time since it was built the wind turbines on its roof were turning.

Help the Homeless

TunnelThere’s a tunnel I walk through every day on the way to work. It leads from Blackfriars underground station to the pedestrian walkway that runs west along the Embankment from Saint Paul’s to just after Blackfriars Bridge. It’s a great tunnel, low and gently curving as it slopes uphill, with a black and yellow tiled floor and long rows of recessed fluorescent lights along both edges of the ceiling. It often has a strong breeze blowing down it, smelling of the river and when you reach the end you have a great view along the Thames towards Waterloo bridge and the Houses of Parliament. I love the drama of that end of the tunnel; you never know whether the tide’s going to be high or low and the weather often seems different to how it was on the railway station.

Homeless people often hang out in the tunnel. That famous knitted-doll making woman is sometimes there and the man with the pointy face and the little dog. For the last week there’s only been the quiet man. He sits on the mandatory piece of flattened cardboard box with his head bowed down and a small cup in front of him. He never asks for spare change, he has no little sign, he never looks up.

On Wednesday I was looking at him from the side as I approached and I saw that he was smiling very slightly, in a bitter sort of way. I never give money to homeless people, for no reason really, but I really felt the contrast between my happiness at the approach of the beautiful view and his static stare at the floor. In my pocket I happened to have an Alprax (don’t ask). As I passed him I dropped it into his cup. I looked back and saw him take it out, pop it out of its blister without looking at it and stick it straight into his mouth.

So, the next day I gave him a microdot that’s been hanging around. He did the same thing. The day after that I wasn’t working but he was still there yesterday and I gave him two Largactyl. Today I only had Co-dydramol. I’m not working again until Friday but I’m a bit worried – I’ve got quite a few Alprax and Largactyl left but I don’t want to repeat myself and anyway, I might need them! I can’t give them all to him. There is half a bottle of Kemadrin at the back of the cupboard but I’ve never even tried those, they don’t sound like fun.