Chester to Bristol - Recording Passing

Wales moves past me. Some fields are dappled white with snow, and some all green and brown. The low-lying fields are partially covered by black sheets of water that flash sky blue as the train passes over. In this instant they appear as holes cut out of a photograph.

We will shortly be arriving at: Shrewsbury

A child’s head bobs visible over a fence and then disappears: there, gone; there, gone; there, gone. A trampoline behind.

The train arrives at Shrewsbury. The people seated in front of me, beside me, behind me, get off. New faces introduce themselves. A woman sits on the table to my right, wearing boots and a long denim skirt. She looks at me briefly, we catch eyes, and she turns away. A girl looks at me from the platform, her face young and open. The train pulls away from the station.

I eat my sandwich. I always eat my food too soon on long train journeys.

The woman on the table to my right sits with two fingers touched lightly to the side of her head, her other hand holding a pen poised above her notebook. She remains like this, motionless, for two minutes.

Writing is a task reserved for sitting still. It usually demands some detachment, a sober reflection on a scenario that has come and gone. On the train I write as the world itself is passing by before my eyes. To write of what I see, of those things caught in that motion – does this lend an immediacy to my writing? Do I reflect these fleeting images through the train’s window, not as the painter would recreate them in construct, but as the photographer would capture them in their vital moment?

‘Sea snake venom. Aphids and haspin. Langoustine and crustacean. Liquid Acids.’ There’s a chuckle from the chair behind me. The man pushing the food trolley has been at his job too long; he has a blotched red face that sits in line with his shoulders and he looks in his fifties. ‘Nelson Mandela. That’s £4.30 then.’

The Welsh hills look beautiful. Snow sits in patches all on their rolling shoulders, and thick dark stripes of grass lay out broad along their spines.

We will shortly be arriving at: Craven Arms

A pond lies still and flat like a mirror, a layer of water laid thin and reflective over a grey plane of ice.

Why do I choose to describe, specifically, these images?

To my right a field extends, a green aspect that follows a soft smooth curve along the upward convex of a mound.

The train passes by an old bastion that stands, ancient, beside a farmhouse and a lake frozen over.

The fields are regularly flooded now, where the snow has melted into huge puddles swamping the plain.

The train pulls in. The lady to my right gets off the train. I see her walking onto the platform, then up the stairs away from it. She is wearing a cream tote bag that reads: ‘Much ado about mutton - Booths’.

The next stop is: Hereford

A woman with a ‘Trail’ bag, walking boots, a waterproof jacket, and grey hair has taken the last woman’s place. She leans on her colourful beanie on the table with one elbow, her hand on her chin as she looks away from me and out of the window.

The man with the trolley makes his way back the other way. ‘Eggs and breads. Albatross. Sea bird bacon.’

Somebody snorts in their sleep.

I’ve been trying to find an analogy to how I perceive the sheep in the fields some distance from me. Some look like little fluffy eyeballs, their black heads the pupils - but I cannot write that. What would such a comparison indicate about the state of mind of the author? Madness.

They snort in their sleep again.

Mole hills dot a beige field of grass.

It’s getting darker each minute.

It’s getting late early.

We will shortly be arriving at: Hereford

The sights on the way into Hereford are grim. Blue tarpaulins are stretched across the shell of a building; a rusty oil drum sits in a huge concrete yard with a smashed TV leaning up against it amongst other detritus: curtain railings, sandwich boxes, concrete rubble.

Two people go to sit at the table to my right, one man one woman. I didn’t notice the walker leave. They put down their rucksacks and sit in silence.

Two men sit across from me at my table. One of them has a huge iPhone out and an iPad mini beside it. What’s the point?

The woman on the table to the right talks very loudly and quickly into her phone in a slight American accent. She seems to be very excited, and then hangs up after saying ‘okayy’ with an upward intonation. Then she’s silent, her face completely flat.

She’s on her phone again. ‘Yeah. Uh huh.’ Short and sweet.

‘Seeaaa snake venom!’ His voice full of menace now. ‘Allllbatross!’

The man sat across from me gets out another iPhone to try and find his e-ticket, a white one that is only slightly smaller than the other. Ridiculous.

The sun casts very little light to the ground now. The scenes are washed in a deep blue ink, except for a sky lit up in golds and blues and powder pinks that touch on the edges of the clouds.

The sheep are darker now, grey dots on that navy landscape. 

The greying skies are visible, and that black line of land pressing up against them, but little else.

The windows on the train harden into mirrors. The darkened landscapes retreat into the shadows of the reflection. My face stares hard back at me. I’ll end it here.