The train station was an impressive oblong structure strung out of mud, bamboo, wood and corrugated metal that reached three stories into the sky. From the ticket office, I could see that the train was already quite full so I bought a first-class ticket and hurriedly boarded. This was the first and last train of the day and it was leaving in forty-two minutes. I could have taken it slowly, but I couldn't trust myself with the time, and besides, the spring cushion seats in the carriage were much more comfortable than the wooden benches on the platform which were covered in bird shit. I sat next to the window and took a nap.
When I woke up, the train was whizzing through the dessert. Nothing but flat terrain, sand and rock. An elderly gentleman sat opposite, to the right of me, hunched over a newspaper on his lap; it was a local one, The Daily Spirit. He was wearing a tie-dye tee shirt and khaki knee length shorts. He stroked his facial hair, about two months growth, while he scanned the words with a smile his face, at first I thought that it was something amusing in the article, but after about half an hour, I noticed that the smile hadn't budged a millimetre, and came to the conclusion that the grin was perhaps a permanent landmark on his face.
The door opened and another tourist came into the compartment. The elderly man looked up and the woman smiled back at him. They both ignored me. She set her plump bottom down next to me; the seat cushion wobbled as the springs underneath redistributed their loads to accommodate the new mass. She fumbled around in her handbag and extracted a small colourful packet. She pulled open the package, and put one of its contents into her mouth; it rattled against her teeth. “Would you care for a sweet?” she waved the bag between the man's head and newspaper.
“I thought you'd never ask!” They laughed. He took a red ball, and placed it into his mouth after a quick admiration of the product. “Mmmm, very tasty! What flavour are they?”
She spun the bag around in her hand and pushed her glasses up her nose. “Hmm, not quite sure. It doesn't say anything except Ooboo Ooboo and everything else is in Biggadese.”
“Well, it doesn't matter as long as they taste good, right?” He grinned as he spoke, a juggling act of lips, teeth, tongue and unidentified spherical object.
I laughed and they glanced nervously at me then pretended that I wasn't there.
“Would you like some of my paper to read, madam?”
“Is that the Daily Spirit? I love to get my daily dose of Daily Spirit!” she guffawed.
He plucked a couple of sheets from the front and handed them to her, “I haven't read the back yet, but the middle should keep me busy for now.”
She leant back into the chair and once again pushed up her glasses to read. I caught her squinting at me and she hid behind with the paper. The front page headline read, “Serenity Boy gig cancelled by disruption!”
Something slid off my head, bounced of the opposite unoccupied seat and landed on the floor in front of me with a loud clonk, narrowly missing the old man's knees. I heard a high pitched yelp and a rustle of paper from next to me. The fallen object was my suitcase; I'd forgotten that I was balancing it on my head for safe-keeping while I slept.
to be continued ...
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