The fog seems to blur my vision and my perception. Am I drunk? My mind is clouded with a fuzzy lethargy that pins me to the platform seat in a stupor.
The station is in the middle of two hills. They are desolate; blanketed in long grasses undulate softly in the mid-afternoon wind rolling through the valley, lending a shimmering effect to the silvery-green hillsides like passing waves. I don’t remember how I got here. I don’t think I am waiting for a train, and I don’t think I was ever on a train. There is a little shed with stone stairs in the distance on the hillside opposite me. It is run down, a sad shade of brown that blends into the swathes of greyness that shroud the sky, hills and my eyes.
The woman and the man are sat on the stairs, talking. She is beautiful. He is tall, with a strong five o’clock shadow that highlights his rugged jawline and his dark features. I cannot be sure who he might be. The remains of my attention are consumed, and I am distracted from the damp bench and the raging pain behind my eyes and in my temples.
Across the grasses, just as the station clock reminds me it’s 16:30, another man is making his way up the stone stairs. He seems preoccupied, and his gait is nervous and agitated. Among the folds of his white shirt and grey overcoat a gleam of brushed silver catches my gaze as he strides up the stairs two at a time. A shade of silver that seems to snarl angrily from his belt at my watering eyes, yet I feel noticeably calm and detached.
My vision starts to become increasingly foggy and the pain becomes more intense. My mouth is dry, and I seem to be sweating in the cold September air.
The man reaches the top of the stairs. The couple seem to have gone inside the shack, I cannot see them anymore. He pauses outside the splintering door, and enters brusquely. I cannot hear anything but my straying mind tells me they are having an argument. The grasses roll on in the wind, ruffling my hair and blowing open my jacket. Tears bleed from my eyes as I pass into darkness.
He is next to me. He smells of cigarettes. How did he get here? How long have we been sharing the same damp bench on the same isolated platform? The pain in my head sears and my delirium strangles me, his image becomes unclear and dissolved. He says something. His voice is alien and distorted, like a badly tuned radio.
I am on a train. I don’t know where it’s going. He is gone. My consciousness seems to be skipping parts of my day like a scratched record. The fire in my head and my eyes has reduced to a dull throbbing, and I am aware of rain trickling down the window like the tears rolling down my cheeks. Where am I going? Where is the man, the woman and her friend?
The train sails on through the lonely moor.
I cannot hear the rabble of the other passengers. The noise has been drowned out by the two gunshots that suffocate and cling to me like the heavy, dead weight of the gun in my belt. Tears stream uncontrollably from my eyes and blend into the tiny flecks of crimson on my white shirt and grey overcoat.
The fog in my eyes retreats, and fades into the background like the distant platform and the memory of my wife and her lover.
Humanposting 