Day 91

Writing Exercise – Write about a place you’ve never been, with an out-of-sorts traveller, and a misunderstanding

…

Have you ever just decided on the spur of the moment to get away?

Anywhere but home, or whatever you think home is, but really it’s just four walls slowly closing in on you because it turns out it had become nothing like what you were hoping for.

A bit like life, really.

I ran away from home, not literally, but practically, because everything back home reminded me of the miserable life I had, no respect, no friends to speak of, and parents who couldn’t;t see past the asperations they had for me, my fathers to take over the hardware store, and my mother, to marry that nice girl Cindy, just up the road.

Cindy had no aspirations. The hardware store was a dinosaur from the past and would soon be superseded by the online suppliers who were cheaper and always in stock.

No one was listening, so I left.

Now, the same was happening. No one was listening, and I was getting stuck in a rut.

Time, I told myself, for a change.

New York Penn Station, the place to go anywhere other than New York.

I fired up my computer and found the first trip it showed me, from Penn Station on West 34th Street to Kansas City the next morning at 10:45, Via Chicago. I’d never been to Chicago, but I’d just watched a rather bad musical movie called Calamity Jane, and it was a place in it.

I think they called that serendipity.

…

I packed my trusty backpack for a two-day travelling experience after booking a business class seat. I would, at the very least, travel in a little comfort, and was no stranger to sleeping in seats, given the number of red-eye specials I took travelling for the company.

I found the train, and my seat, shown to me by a conductor, which was a surprise.

Then it was simply a matter of picking up my book, and reading until it was time to sleep.

Except…

Just before the train departed a young woman, about 30ish if I was to guess, came up the aisle, looking at seat numbers and then sitting next to me.

First reaction, she smelled of moth balls. An odd thought, had she been living in a clothes closit? Nothing would surprise me in New York.

Second creation, surprise she travelled with so little. Perhaps that was why she had so many clothes on: jeans, flannel shirt, jumper, jacket, scarf, gloves, sturdy boots.

She looked me up and down but said nothing. I tried not to look at her, but there was something about her. Had I seen her before, or was she ill? She looked very pale, and her eyes were watery. Did she have a cold or worse, a variant of COVID? I really didn’t want to get sick before I got started on this odyssey.

For a few minutes, before the train started rolling out of the station, I seriously considered getting off the train.

I didn’t and hoped I wouldn’t regret it.

…

Six hours out, she looked like death warmed up. There was definitely something wrong with her, and I was considering going to the conductor to see if there was a doctor on board.

Then she woke up.

I had to ask, “Are you alright?”

“Why?”

“You look very ill.”

“I just feel out of sorts. Time of the year, between seasons. Hot one minute, cold the next.”

I’m surprised she told me, after the instant dagger look she gave me before I asked.

“Why take the train when you can fly?”

“Going to see my parents in Kansas City.”

“You live there?”

“No.”

Didn’t answer the question. Like everyone else I spoke to it was impossible to get a straight answer to a clear question.

“But your parents live there?”

“Yes.”

“But you don’t?”

“No.”

“They moved to Kansas City?”

“No. Lived there all their lives.”

“But you don’t?”

“No.”

“Wouldn’t it be quicker to fly?”

“Not enough time.”

OK. Another strange answer that begged a hundred questions.

“For what?”

She gave me a seriously dangerous look, and I think if she had either a gun or a knife, I’d be dead now. “Do you always ask daft questions?”

“Mostly, it seems, but I’ll bite. Not enough time for what?”

“To think about what I will say to them?”

“About what?”

OK. That was not a question to ask, but she definitely piqued my interest.

“A guy I knew in Kansas City.”

“But you don;t live there?”

“He followed me to New York. Thought I was the one. Seems he thought that about three, so he had three ‘the one’s’. If you know what I mean.”

I seriously considered going back to sleep. Or reading the Gideon version of the bible I stole from a hotel room.

“But you didn’t live in Kansas City?”

“Not now. No.”

“Then I’ll leave you to it.”

“To what?”

“Thinking.”

“About?”

“The not ‘one’.”

She looked at me strangely. “Are you sure you’re not an axe murderer? I mean, it would be just my luck…”

…

©  Charles Heath  2025