Heavingham Colin – “Blue Head on a Platform”.
I kept waiting for the 11 o’clock train, but it never came. I was there with my hand luggage and a thick plush blanket, which I have packed to warm my legs as I waited in the cold outdoors of the station. I remained like this for hours, in concentrated silence, trying not to make any sound that could interfere the spotless quietness crackling among the parched planks of the station, with the secret hope of perceiving, in the deep remoteness, some trace of a growing rumbling announcing an arriving. But the train never showed up. Even the piece of sky that leaned out beyond the platform wings, cut it off against the leafy treetops of poplars and eucalyptus over the opposite edge of the rails, was so limpid as a blank sheet devoid of meaning.
From time to time I heard elusory whispers; a transparent, almost dissipated trail of voices, commenting about time, maybe, or years, about life, and the endless waiting on platforms. I didn’t pay much attention to them, trying to hear the announcement of the next train headed for your next destination is making its arrival at the platform number this and that. Then I would fold my blanket slowly, as the uproar of machinery and people circulating up and down opened a universe of sounds and images to me once more; I would pack it away back into my case and, luggage in hand, I would get on the wagon where I would search for my seat number to get comfortable on it, next to the window (always next to the window), waiting for the departure while I looked upon the hectic world of arrivings and departings on platforms, to finally get embarked on a journey of a lifetime.
I still had some hope that it would be so, even when any strand of steps or conversations had diluted into a cold sunset that began to grow under the siege of its shadows. I brought my hands to my mouth to warm them. Not even the thick blanket could save them now from the harsh promise of that long winter night. I waited patiently to some curious voice came closer to ask me what was I doing there yet, that it was becoming too late, that I needed to come back home. And I would have to say, to explain, with a voice outworn as an old hope, that that wasn’t possible anymore. That I had lost my train.
Searing Words 