I hate trains.

It’s 3am now. I’ve been awake for sixteen hours. I got home two hours ago and all I’ve done is sit in silence in a vape cloud staring at the wall and thinking about everything, and nothing at all.

I recently visited home. It was a relatively peaceful visit. When I started the journey back it was mid afternoon. The sun was out but it smelt like rain, which gave me some small hope for the coming evening. I read all the way back, to distract myself from the noise. I never liked train travel. All the way back I needed to smoke, to shit, to drink and to be anywhere but on a fucking train. At the first underground station the escalator was out of action, so I carried my bag down some near 200 steps into the London Sub society of bent neck mouth breathers. I’ve always hated being in London, or even passing through. It’s dirty, and everyone looks down on you. Not just the rich and the well fashioned youths, but the paupers too. In the city, it gets to feeling like you’re too rich or too poor to fit in with anyone at all. I tried to read my book the three short stops but the heat and the smell and the vacant gazes of the depressed were too distracting. I didn't have any playing cards, and my Mother had always scolded me for dog earing the corners, so I slipped my ticket in for a page marker and put it back in the side pocket of my bag. I kept my head down, like the rest of them, and tried not to think about the stench.

The last leg was fast, the train only made one stop and I was back in town before 5pm with nowhere to go and nothing to do. It wasn’t raining yet but you could see the sky beginning to grey and brown and gloom just the way I like it. I smoked a cigarette, bought a bottle of whiskey at the off license outside the station and waited for a taxi. When I got home, I threw my bag down, out of the way, poured a large drink and took it to the bathroom with me. When I was done I unpacked, washed away the city grime and got changed into comfortable clothing. I sat and drank for a while and continued to read the book I’d started in the small Suffolk village.(*1). At around about 9pm I made a sandwich, put the book down for the night and put the television on. I don’t remember what I watched, I wasn’t really paying attention. I was just trying to drown out the noise.

Tuesday I drank. I don’t remember getting home. I woke up for work with twenty minutes to get ready and travel the way. I made it in time, and worked for fifteen hours with a hang over. When I got home I didn’t drink. I haven’t had a drink today either, which is likely why I’m still awake. For now, it’s pretty quiet. I can hear the sound of the clock making its rounds, and distant cars with distant people going to distant places to do distant things.

It’s lonely at 3am, when everyone’s asleep and there’s no one to shoot shit with or comfort. I like this time of night. No one needs me or expects anything from me. I can sit and stare at the wall in silence but for the clock and the distant strangers.

Today was not a bad day, and tomorrow I have a late start which means I can sleep whilst everyone else gets up to go. I think I’ll pick that book back up now. It’s much nicer reading in a silent lonely room than it is on a train. I fucking hate trains.

That is all,

W.L

*1 - Factotum, by Charles Bukowski (an excellent book if you have a few short hours spare).