A man in the training station waiting room blows his nose with a handkerchief. He's trying to think of the name of the film starring Jim Carey in which everything is artificial. I want to say The Truman Show. The man he's speaking to says he doesn't think it's the sort of film he'd watch. Maybe it's a trick question because every film is artificial. He uses the word salubrious to describe Oxford Station. I have to look the word up. I've never been so I'm looking forward to a fully salubrious experience. If I ever used that word in a conversation, I think I would take my time over it. Spend at least three times longer saying the word salubrious than I would another word of the same length. Sal-uuuuu-bri-ooous. It seems correct to say it like that. Like saying Wales in a Welsh accent. Way-ells. Or Newcastle with the castle spoken quickly and given much more emphasis than a southerner would give it: new-CASTLE. A woman is warming her face in the rising sun. She faces east. I work out that the train will arrive from the other direction because I'm catching an eastbound train. Oxford will be our vicar who always faces west as his passengers/parishioners all face east. A church congregation always faces a rising sun. Cloisters to their left/north, main entrance to their right (south). When I'm working out my compass points, I always imagine myself in a church. I've boarded the train. The lady sat across from me is reading What a Hazard a Letter is by Caroline Atkins. She's underlining things. I Google the book. The title comes from an Emily Dickinson poem. My copy of her complete works spans 770 pages. The book is over two inches thick and yet there are only two known photographs of the great American poet. I often wonder how many people got to see Dickinson smile.
I’ve called him Mr Pebble Pockets because if I don’t make a joke out of it I’ll cry. It was about 10:30pm, I’d just got back to the boat from a late shift and I was waiting for my Deliveroo. He was standing a little further down the towpath and staring at the water. The night was clear and crisp and there was enough moonlight to see the shape of him: he was tall, late twenties and had a powerful sporty look to him. He wasn’t crying, but he was shaking and he stood crooked. Well, it doesn’t take a genius, does it? I only came out to wait for a bloody curry. Mother Florence bloody Teresa Nightingale springing into action, hungry and as tired as fuck and now having to stop this guy from jumping into the canal with an anchor for a coat. I know now that the best thing to do was offer him a cigarette. I don’t know why I didn’t. I had the packet and the lighter in my hand. ‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘Ar...
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