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The door hissed shut and if you'd been there on the platform to wave me goodbye it might've felt filmic, epic even. You weren't on the platform because we'd said goodbye already and after the finality of our last conversation there isn't room for any little goodbyes to follow after, so it doesn't feel filmic and it doesn't feel epic, which is a shame because a touch of drama and a dash of glamour could make this hole in me feel less ragged. I could even tell myself that I'd learnt something.
The old man in the seat opposite me has washed his flesh in honey and eucalyptus soap, probably even uses the same brand you do. It seems astonishing to be reminded of your smell so quickly, I hope he gets off the train soon so I don't have to smell you all the way to Liverpool. As we swoop through suburban cuttings, the sun strobes through the trees and dances in his eyes. How many journeys has this old man taken to and from love. I want to ask him but there's no way to frame the question without seeming like a nutcase.
'Everyone you have ever loved, everyone who has ever touched you, is alive in you and will never go away' he says to the window. He has an old fashioned Scouse accent, all gentle consonants with a careful lilt. He turns his eyes to mine and produces a bottle of Scotch and a couple of plastic cups from an old canvas bag. 'You have the look of a man who needs a drink, whereas I am a man who needs someone to drink with' he purrs, 'Serendipity' he toasts and cautiously we knock our frail cups together.
'There is not a man alive who is entirely himself, despite what some may say. You pick up a saying here, an expression there and the person who said this to you remains in you, becomes a part of you. Time can make any feeling grow dim and distant but it'll still be there and it'll still nab you in the middle of the night when you don't expect it. Beware the man who speaks of closure, for there's a man who knows fuck-all' and with that he settles back into the chair with a contented grunt.
Out of the window, fields and trees zoom past, the English countryside in winter, blackened fields and spidery trees on hills, hills I'll never climb, fields I'll never cross. The old man tops me up, so I ask him 'How do you bear it? All that time, all those people?' He grins at me and coughs, 'I've just buried an old friend, we used to talk about this stuff all the time. It was the big C that got him, so I had a chance to say goodbye, which is about as much as you can ask for when it comes to death. He said to me "When you bury me, you do not bury a man, you bury a city, for you bury all those I have loved along with me."' Then he turned to me and raised his glass 'Here's to those that die with the dead'.
M.M.E.S
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