Today, on the train (and other things). An Essay in the style of Vonnegut.

Well, I’m home for Easter. That’s nice. It’s not that nice as I don’t like Southend much and much prefer Liverpool, but I could do with a bit of a break.

I wrote that essay. Eventually. It just took a decent discussion about it with my housemate until 6am. That and ‘the fear’. It seems I can’t do essays without having ‘the fear’ of the looming deadline, the final few hours. Bit annoying, but there you go.

I hope I do well in that essay, it wasn’t easy and we weren’t given much help at all. The lecturer was an idiot. Criminology, I maintain, is rubbish.

But, I handed the essay in. Well, I finished the essay, then packed my bag to come home, grabbed my guitar, grabbed my juggling balls, went to grab my juggling clubs and realised I’d lent them to a newbie who seems like a nice guy. I text him, he said he gave them to the society treasurer, a girl I know. I text her to find out she’d given them to a guy who I now don’t get on with. Don’t get on with is a massive understatement. It pains me to hold back the diatribe of loathing I have specially stored for him, every time he burdens me with his presence. But, I text him (after some whinging to people about how the treasurer’s got rocking-horse shit for brains) and I now have them back. Apart from the text, he didn’t say a word to me. This pleased me. He doesn’t like me much either, but I think I have more reason to dislike him than him me.

I went and picked them up from him at the pub, once my essay was handed in. I put my stuff down as I knew I’d have to wait around for a few minutes whilst my housemate got out of her tutorial to come meet me. I had a small lemonade. I had another. She arrived, we had a laugh. I looked at some pretty girls who had a bunch of facial piercings and bright neon coloured hair. I left to catch my train.

I rushed to the train station. It wasn’t far, but I had a lot to carry and was dragging a big bag and was sweating a little in the april heat. I had to collect my tickets from the machine but there was a queue. I went to the other machine, a shorter queue, but it took much longer. A woman who was just shy of four foot high was collecting numerous tickets. I had under a minute to get my ticket and get onto the train that was next to the machine. I panicked and had to run and got on the wrong carriage and had to drag it through two full carriages of people, but I had made it onto the train.

I slept on the journey. It was only two hours long. The girl opposite me wasn’t pretty but she looked happy and busy and she called the people who phoned her ‘Darling’ in an attractive manner.

I walked, pleased with myself, from Euston train station along the now familiar path, across the road and along the high-sided street to Euston Square station to go onto the circle line. It was simple. I waited for a little while on the platform. An hour in terms of tube lines, in actual fact only 7 minutes.

On the tube, I smiled at the people having a nice Friday. There was a plain looking man who was sitting next to a pleasant foreign girl and they were enjoying a joke. They were talking as if they’d never met before. He asked her his name. I can’t recall what she said, but she smiled as she said it. The middle aged man sitting next to them huffed. I wanted to ask if he wanted a hug. I didn’t.

At Tower Hill station it was dark. People smelt of perfume and drugs and life and cigarettes and freedom. There were a flock of tourists taking pictures of the Tower of London as it was all lit up and looking like it should on postcards.

I wore my cowboy boots today. I like the noise they make as I walk. I like the height they give me. I walked the short route to Fenchurch station. I found a train to sit on and I sat.

Today, on the train, a man was sick shortly after I sat down. I got out my spare bottle of water and spare pack of tissues and offered them immediately. They were promptly taken and used. He seemed to feel much better after that. He didn’t look like the kind of man who normally spontaneously vomits on stationary trains. He looked like he had a job. Friends. A girlfriend. He looked like he’d probably been for something to eat with a friend or two and had got food poisoning. I didn’t mind. The body is a delicate thing, I told myself. The most subtle of chemical imbalances and sudden and unpleasant things happen.

I played my guitar to the carriage on the train today. I sang a few songs. I was applauded. A six year old boy high fived me. I asked him to high five me. I used him as the excuse to sing to the carriage. There was a pretty girl reading a boring book by boring writer about a boring romance between boring people who looked over at me and smiled a few times. I liked that, but wish she had a better taste in books.