The bus pulls into the East Midlands Parkway station and everybody gets off. I buy a coffee and a bottle of water from the cafe.
The station is directly beside a power plant. It looks like the one out of the Simpsons. The eight enormous cooling towers dwarf the station; they are twenty times taller than the largest tree near them.
The towers are sculptural to look at. A dark grid is streaked into their concrete. The bottom few meters of the towers are open, the interiors visible through pillars that run diagonal, zigzagging. They seem bone-like. Behind the pillars black water falls over a black surface.
Above them the sky has turned overcast. In the grey light the grey towers seems emphasised. Bigger - realer.
I board the train to London, St. Pancras.
Long sentences of field stretch out, punctuated by a hyphen of trees here, a hay bale comma there. A church steeple stands pointedly, a proud exclamation mark.
The meadows are brown with turned earth, or green and grassy, or buttered in the yellow of spring.
The train won’t stop creaking.
A baby starts up crying and the mother gets up and leaves the carriage to calm her.
A minute or two later she comes back and sits across from me.
We pull into Loughborough.
The baby throws her toy on the floor every time it is given to her. She starts up occasionally but is quieter now.
We pull into Market Harborough.
The ticket collector begins down the carriage: ‘Tickets please, for passengers since Preston.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Thank you.’
She comes to me. I show her my phone and she laughs and waves her hand. “You think I have eyes like a spaceman or something.”
I don’t understand what she means exactly, but the comment is in reference to my phone. The screen is completely shattered from dropping it the night before. It is the cliché of a broken phone - cracks run in lines from a white point in the middle, like a spider’s web.
I've forgotten my notepad so I’m writing this using my phone. I worry I'm going to get glass in my fingers.
The train tilts to a slant and my empty bottle of water topples over and rolls next to the window. I pick up up and put it back, lent against my empty coffee cup.
The train pulls into a station that goes unannounced. The station sign is partially obscured by the pole of a lamp. I can read ‘-ring’.
The train begins to move and the rest becomes visible. It reads ‘Kettering’. I read it a few more times on a few more signs as we leave the station.
The sun’s back out.
It casts light onto some huge green warehouses and three green cranes with green hooks above courtyards of crates.
It casts light onto a row of lorries parked. Lidl supermarket, Tesco, Penguin publishing.
To my left four wind turbines spin in the breeze, their fluid white frames lit whiter in the light of the sun.
We pull into Wellingborough.
Three ducks fly out in arrow formation.
The wild duck startles like a sudden thought.
We pass a field of horses with a plane of water through the middle of it. I remember on the way here I saw a tent in the field on the edge of that water. It didn’t look a safe place to pitch up. Unless you were a horse, of course.
The landscape of much of this journey could be characterised as boring. Flat, but with enough hills that it’s not noteworthy. Factories regularly spoil the view. The fields rarely contain anything interesting.
I’ve become somewhat of a field connoisseur.
Some cows in that one there, spaced quite pleasingly too. All a nice shade of brown, a couple of black ones for good measure. Perfect.
It smells of clutch where I’m sat. And the squeaking hasn’t stopped.
We pass a few allotments with tiny little sheds. The doors look way too small for a person. The whole lot of them look like toys, doll’s house allotments. So tidy as well. And the grass just the right height, just that perfect shade of green.
*Ding dong ding!*
We’re now approaching Bedford, the next stop is Bedford.
I sometimes wonder how consistent my tone of voice is in my writing. Does it drift in and out of formality and informality? I feel like it bloody well does. Lol.
As we pull out another train rushes past us. It’s windows blur into a flat mirror reflecting the blue skies behind our train.
Four factory chimneys run across the horizon. Around them are fluffy bushes in tufts. Past that are clouds in a tufty white strip. Past that clear blue. The white and the green seem to mimic one another in the shape of their tufts.
The bald dome of a man’s head glistens in front of me. I wonder if he waxes it. Is it standard procedure to wax your head if you’re bald? I think I would.
Now approaching Luton.
The sun’s beginning to set. And I’ve spent all this sunny day stuck en route.
The station is directly beside a power plant. It looks like the one out of the Simpsons. The eight enormous cooling towers dwarf the station; they are twenty times taller than the largest tree near them.
The towers are sculptural to look at. A dark grid is streaked into their concrete. The bottom few meters of the towers are open, the interiors visible through pillars that run diagonal, zigzagging. They seem bone-like. Behind the pillars black water falls over a black surface.
Above them the sky has turned overcast. In the grey light the grey towers seems emphasised. Bigger - realer.
I board the train to London, St. Pancras.
Long sentences of field stretch out, punctuated by a hyphen of trees here, a hay bale comma there. A church steeple stands pointedly, a proud exclamation mark.
The meadows are brown with turned earth, or green and grassy, or buttered in the yellow of spring.
The train won’t stop creaking.
A baby starts up crying and the mother gets up and leaves the carriage to calm her.
A minute or two later she comes back and sits across from me.
We pull into Loughborough.
The baby throws her toy on the floor every time it is given to her. She starts up occasionally but is quieter now.
We pull into Market Harborough.
The ticket collector begins down the carriage: ‘Tickets please, for passengers since Preston.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Thank you.’
She comes to me. I show her my phone and she laughs and waves her hand. “You think I have eyes like a spaceman or something.”
I don’t understand what she means exactly, but the comment is in reference to my phone. The screen is completely shattered from dropping it the night before. It is the cliché of a broken phone - cracks run in lines from a white point in the middle, like a spider’s web.
I've forgotten my notepad so I’m writing this using my phone. I worry I'm going to get glass in my fingers.
The train tilts to a slant and my empty bottle of water topples over and rolls next to the window. I pick up up and put it back, lent against my empty coffee cup.
The train pulls into a station that goes unannounced. The station sign is partially obscured by the pole of a lamp. I can read ‘-ring’.
The train begins to move and the rest becomes visible. It reads ‘Kettering’. I read it a few more times on a few more signs as we leave the station.
The sun’s back out.
It casts light onto some huge green warehouses and three green cranes with green hooks above courtyards of crates.
It casts light onto a row of lorries parked. Lidl supermarket, Tesco, Penguin publishing.
To my left four wind turbines spin in the breeze, their fluid white frames lit whiter in the light of the sun.
We pull into Wellingborough.
Three ducks fly out in arrow formation.
The wild duck startles like a sudden thought.
We pass a field of horses with a plane of water through the middle of it. I remember on the way here I saw a tent in the field on the edge of that water. It didn’t look a safe place to pitch up. Unless you were a horse, of course.
The landscape of much of this journey could be characterised as boring. Flat, but with enough hills that it’s not noteworthy. Factories regularly spoil the view. The fields rarely contain anything interesting.
I’ve become somewhat of a field connoisseur.
Some cows in that one there, spaced quite pleasingly too. All a nice shade of brown, a couple of black ones for good measure. Perfect.
It smells of clutch where I’m sat. And the squeaking hasn’t stopped.
We pass a few allotments with tiny little sheds. The doors look way too small for a person. The whole lot of them look like toys, doll’s house allotments. So tidy as well. And the grass just the right height, just that perfect shade of green.
*Ding dong ding!*
We’re now approaching Bedford, the next stop is Bedford.
I sometimes wonder how consistent my tone of voice is in my writing. Does it drift in and out of formality and informality? I feel like it bloody well does. Lol.
As we pull out another train rushes past us. It’s windows blur into a flat mirror reflecting the blue skies behind our train.
Four factory chimneys run across the horizon. Around them are fluffy bushes in tufts. Past that are clouds in a tufty white strip. Past that clear blue. The white and the green seem to mimic one another in the shape of their tufts.
The bald dome of a man’s head glistens in front of me. I wonder if he waxes it. Is it standard procedure to wax your head if you’re bald? I think I would.
Now approaching Luton.
The sun’s beginning to set. And I’ve spent all this sunny day stuck en route.
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