On The Train

We stopped once on the journey to visit the lavatory. What a sight. Gleaming marble with fractures of what I can only describe as quartz. Chrome, mirrors and pin lights everywhere. The tissue paper was like Persian silk against my weary bottom. I arched my back, my mouth hung open and my eyes closed slowly as I wiped the mess away. And in the wiping I felt the pains that month had brought me fade, slowly dissolving with the mush of paper in the sloshing pan of the toilet.

I hoisted up my dungarees and flung the door open.

“Pontefract!!”, I called down the cabin, turning heads and marching with a determination, arms pumping like a butcher

“Do hurry up, we’re getting off, fetch my hat and coat, make sure you have the leisure shorts from Aunt Wilberfitch”, I hollered, “At this rate will never make the circus on time!”

He bustled and bundled and struggled with the load, I must admit I felt a tinge of guilt when his bandages unraveled and fell leaving the awful scars I gave him exposed to the fierce hail and winds we were stepping off the train into. But I was more concerned with the smudge of chocolate at the corner of my mouth and tongued it repeatedly. It was still good. Nothing tastes better than stolen food.