A Cow Chewing Cud

A Cow Chewing Cud.

The two twenty-seven, from Doncaster to Lincoln, that is my train. Peculiar how you develop a strange obsessive bond when travelling, constantly trundling through my mind, a mantra – the two-twenty seven from Doncaster to Lincoln, the two-twenty seven from Doncaster to Lincoln- on and on, on and on, it has a rhythm all of its own, something vague and distant, yet every street sign and face I do not notice, has the two twenty-seven, from Doncaster to Lincoln, smeared all over them. That is the train I am chasing, I must catch it so as to arrive in Lincoln in time, a romance has begun, the train and I. The platform as with most dates is, as a place, inconsequential,we are destined to meet, the train and I, but first the bus and I.

Dawdling, peering through the thick mist of strangers, the two-twenty seven from Doncaster to Lincoln, always swirling in an ever maddening soup. A frenzied patternless jumble of haphazard folk, a blizzard of dribbling faces, gunning out haziness, they are untouchable from even so short a distance. If my weak frail hand held a spoon, I could scoop up hundreds in one gigantic swoop, tossing the debris of legs, left overs and handbags into the ever laughing madness of the bleak sky above, repeatedly shoveling, a recipe for massacre, clear the streets though, new expanses of pavement, free from furtiveness, I would never be late again inside this, maelstrom to no discernible end!

I glance without seeing, tired eyes, too thin, slimly blinking at the bus schedule, meaningless, awkward times, you miss one connection, catch another, miss the in between to what end? Tired before my journey has even begun, it could be the damp remorselessness of a bus stations concrete everywhere, it could be me, bones ache and merry dance without moving, silent immovable gawking, why do I implicitly trust in the schedule ghost Nostradamus. For what purpose is your hectic harrowing hideousness. The City and I trapped in a contest of pompous dawdling, watching and therefore immune from being watched?

The bus arrives and I am drunk with listlessness, this bus queue may never end, yet not a soul stirs, nor panics, we could be waiting for a ticket into the long quiet of eternity,

-Ticket to Eternity?

-Oh yes please!

-Just join the queue, won't be a jiffy!

-Thank you very much!

Yet the engine will stall, long before I am seated, the thick pipes and lines will choke from oil-thirst, metal shall bend and break and crumble from rust before we board, I am sick to the roof of my mind. For a fleeting moment I will not board, I shall break from the worrying lines, and away! Where, where the people go, bewildering subterranean archways, the hoot of diesel engines, the fog of lore lurking inside every elevated sign, neon addresses, towns, place names by numbers I can not hope to understand, nor can I hope to abandon the line.

Sad now sat, had that been the end of it all, I should arrive merry, or only half delirious, yet peeping out I see a world plodding hopefully past dull looking clumps of youth, passing by, the bus choking their attempts to laugh, languid bespoke youth, clinging to the greasy bust station glass; thick walls of transparent madness streaked with a thousand hand prints from a thousand dirty childhoods, a billion lost lollypops. Astounded this temple has no statues, this hub of humanity, mute for the most part, a purposeful indecent transiency, and I am bewilderingly ashamed to be passing through it all. I glance at my finger nails, dirty, I use my left fore finger to pick grime and grubby slime from my right, the diabolical click of finger nail on finger nail, I inspect the result and I am thoroughly satisfied, fascinated even, so I wipe it cheaply on the multi-coloured fabric upon which I and the world has sat.

The great lumbering bus plummets through the gruelling galaxy of scintillating shop fronts, sizzling fast food outlets and cosmic sprawl of other unremarkable things. I leave the bus, hurriedly chasing a train I may never catch. Train station a great deal more threatening than the bus terminus, greater ogres and splendorous wrongs lurk here. Relatively minor confusion, quick bought my ticket, small queue, polite lady, off now back into the foyer, a crowd clatters along outside, a young mother pushing younger child hisses stopping rather suddenly and clumsily, tripping over her every disillusioned heart ache. A child caterwauling in protest, a young boy whoops excitedly, outside the carousel flinches but never ceases.

Sitting on the train, as far from another as proximity permits on a train carriage. The grumbles below reverberate along its steel shell, a platform guard idles his mind away reading a poster for a blockbuster, corpulent man, well fed, happy with it in truth, a crucifix swings delightedly from his neck. This mighty happiness could be Jehovah himself, for what a splendid job, passing his never beginning days away, with countless endings, trains come, passengers go, a world commutes before his wise and benevolent
eyes, an ideal job it would be for the greatest scheduler of all time. A sudden burp of industry, propels me away from the cities drying loins, we are shot forward, grinding immutable pleasures along grassy tracks into the future.

It occurs to me in stark understandings, there is a place in between the city and the countryside where civilization is ending, from the remarkable bubbles of blessedness that is a train stations endless book/coffee stalls, who can distinguish, not I. To the lush expansive fields where lambs sit down to wait out the rain. There is a half mile of dereliction, abandoned worrying world. The train trundles tormenting me through this bleak semi-civilisation. The end of industry, here steel fell to its knees, exhausted, its armour bashed and broken, its sword dented, the champion of ore and wheel is defeated. There an abandoned bucket, rusty never used tracks, two ageless carriages with their windows shattered and their slogans faded, doors apart, forced or otherwise it is a solemn sight. Not quite there nor here, the country and the city, epic foes with this no mans land between, infested with hope and devoid of a future, I pass through this merry world of lost. A world of brick piles, snapping under the ceaseless curiousity of vines, creeping steadily decade after decade into the heart of brick. I find myself pondering whose job had it been to finish this waste land, had the men lied.

-Is section b4 completed John?

-Yes boss sir, me and Mike O'Rourke done a good job, go and look if it pleases you!

-No bother John, good men all of you, have the future off!

Had John and Mike O'Rourke lost their jobs, died, joined the war in a far away land? I see the half tracks lying abandoned in the dirt, a small brick shed where doubtless dark eyed workman huddled in cowering complaint from the rain. I feel a peace passing through this incomplete beautifulness, a place where endeavour met lethargy, futility reigns here, I am the king of incompleteness. Yet too soon, much too soon I am splashing into the countryside, a bucket of water crashing from a billion miles high, broken suddenly from a falling airy revelry. A cow chews cud whilst we pass by, a cow chews cud and pays us no more mind than the broken half used rail track behind. That cow to be so pure and wise, watching man machines pass daily, is it aware of some manner of routine, does it see purpose in the occasional loud intrusions, a formula, a god? A cow chewing could continue without thought or pause, may even see as many marvelous things in the simple act of trains passing, as I see in anything I loose.

A phone rudely employs its tones along the head rests of quietude, I am dragged forcefully from the masticating bovine, gone now, the train will never pause, the world changes outside and inside me. A tall gangly lady enquires after my ticket, I fumble politely, with a grin as idiotic as a cow chewing cud, she scribbles green felt all over the clean facade of my eternity ticket.

-Thank you!

-Thank you!

We had had a conversation, short and thoroughly polite, what else could she say to me, I to her. She moves along, whoring out her minute conversations to every passenger, I feel betrayed, momentary loneliness, that swift slag to profit from our sullen isolations, away with you. I scratch my knee and return to the window world, endless same coloured hues, bushes line the track, thick impregnable ever stubborn legions, battalions of thorny bracken. I pause and try to think of something prophetic.

-I'm bored! Therefore I mumble.

Pathetic shallowness, suddenly the bracken recedes, and a great sweeping psalm of land stretches deeply into the horizon. Four large conical concrete towers stand obese and bullish in the land. Spewing forth a thick cloud of swarming gases, massively awe inspiring. Man built that, to power his world, proffering light so as to avert madness, this train and those grotesque cones, that cow and the waste land, with I passing through it all anonymous. I suddenly need to urinate, glancing about with eager politeness I make my way to the toilet. Its occupied, I lurk impatiently, I look out of the window in the door, I read the sign

PRESS BUTTON WHEN LIT, BEWARE OF THE GAP WHEN DEPARTING, INBETWEEN THE PLATFORM AND TRAIN.

I should like to dive into that toilet, and throttle the person preventing me from peaceful twinklings, I decide to use the one along the carriage, I decide not to wait any longer for convenience. Eye contact in the carriage is strictly forbidden, nothing in the eyes of strangers sat morbid with dormant desires, you would laugh if you could. This second toilet is occupied also.

Back in seat, and back to thinking. You remember everything on the train, I recall the history of breathing, small and large. Waiting for you, that waiting word again, and without a bus or train in sound. I sat giddy, wiggling in new trousers, grey flannel faultless freebies. This hand me down attire brings out the best in me, I am a new boy, bullet proof, tear proof. Miss Colt the social worker smiles benignly, the scent of middle class helpfulness, I slurp the last globules of coca cola from the bottom of the cup, luscious noises, I burp and she frowns, Oh how I remember your absurd clownish loveliness Miss Colt. I smile so deep inside me, flowers begin to grow in a far away field, where the sun beats down so burningly beautiful a congregation of wild creatures dance in concentric circles, singing in voices I can never understand, yet it is a joyous sound and makes my very bones groan with joy never ending.

This is not how waiting for you made me feel, but its how I remember it, and on the endless train journey into waiting this is the innate flaw of remembrance. I wiggle my small toes, I rub my tiny hamster paws together, the orange plastic of the seat is helpful, for I slide back and forth in youthful agitation. The cafe table will be forever white, with its forever speckles of light blue helping me to make pictures out of randomness. Miss Colt examines her watch for the ninth, eleventh, sixteenth time. I in my glorious oblivion only recall much later, much late away on a train her thoughtless insensitivity.

-I am afraid, Peter, I don't think he's.........!

Spoke too soon, weird gentle lady who smells of new furniture, and you amble in, wild eyed and a head almost but not quite hairless. I thought nothing then. Miss Colt and you spoke away from me, discussing things I could not, should not hear, she repeatedly gesticulates at her watch, I saw you shrink sadly before her maniacal fascination with time. Then she vanishes and you are sat a colossus before me, I look into those articulate eyes, and the guilt of every derelict father looks back at me.

-Okay, son? Deep raspy voice, just a hint of an accent, or possibly a sore throat, your lips and beard seem to be one, a bearded lip of sound, I am fascinated by the affectations of manhood, I could be you one day.

-Good thank you................Dad! That one word I recall ruined it all, that dirty unforgiveable word broke you, sucked every particle of air from your lungs, trod viciously every sinew of hope into the earth, you collapsed ancient before me, fragile Dad to break at one careless word from a dreamy son, talented brave Father to die before my watching vapours; an intolerable shame we should meet under such undeserving blame. You for your criminal collapses and I for my too eager demanding, what son dare ask a father from the dismantled man.

A great jolt and I am aware of Saxilby, not my station, nor was Gainsborough, she slipped by me without so much as a whistle toot, regardless close now. Some leave, some do not, a few sit down, damn you impossibly fresh travellers, fast excited voices. Looking out now I see those salty pointless globules of memory marring my wan forgiveness. I gasp and glance upwards hiding my face, swallowing my gut back deep into me. From father to father I should still understand nothing. Another generous jolt and the train ponderous in its first tentative fresh born giraffe legs, wobbles away from Saxilby, not my station, behind me now anyhow. I rest my head upon the oscillating glass, chill goodness as it rains gently outside, such soft rain, each miniscule rain drop is the spittle of laughter from a joyous mite, impossibly small sprite, too tiny for my old eyes, yet each speckle is a freckle of liquid gladness, wonderful to think the world outside is populated with a trillion laughing sprites, this rain is glorious to my cooling forehead.

I wonder if the toilets are free, yet dare not risk an ounce more of disappointment, who would? I am too light to sink, yet much to heavy to fly, I could remove every item of memory and still be stuck fast to this seat. Then in the near distance, I spy the towers of the Cathedral, such a homely sight. Especially and in their lights best at night, running along the motorway, with its dull and drab repetitiveness; glad are all returning to see those towers shine. I remember the gap in between the platform and the train, a world of incompleteness, the harbour and the ship, the city and the countryside; I and my past, the past and I lucrative strangers, adversaries as different as the country and the city. Beware the gap in between the truth and history, because inevitably, irrevocably it will consume us all.......

Lincoln service, the two twenty-seven from Doncaster, on time!, “This service will terminate at Lincoln”.