A Lone Journey by a Lone Man
Such a man has but a single purpose to travel from Bradford to London.
The steam train thundered through the dark, its smoke sensed in discernible whiffs of grey seen through the window, down which rivulets of rain streamed. He occupied himself reading the headlines in last evening’s newspaper, holding it wide as if hiding from the woman sitting opposite.
Were he to concern himself with such headlines, he would be unable to carry out his duty.
The railway carriage smelled of Brylcream and other overpowering decoctions of old perfumes, mingling with stale tobacco ash vestige. The man woke at an ungodly hour of the morning to make this journey from Bradford to London with one purpose in mind, a journey made shorter by the game he played, trying to guess what his fellow passengers were travelling for. Take the man across the aisle; he liked the look of fellow passenger’s fine brogues; a serious man, perhaps a doctor on his way to perform a complex surgery, he wondered.
Another passenger was humming to the clickety-clack of the train’s steel wheels over the rails, causing our friend to rasp his newspaper, seemingly irritated. He offered a discourteous glance in the stranger’s direction before hiding his disgruntledness behind its headlines: a musician, the man is a musician…
