Downstream

There is a train that takes me where I have to go. The train goes South and then East, to a land that I know well but one to which I have never been. To get to the train, though, I have to either go to the ghost bus station or to the strange underground interchange. This is what I've chosen to do today, so as I am approaching my stop I get ready, careful not to forget my guitar or my bags. The tube train is something I had not seen before, a double -decker carriage. It is a bit awkward to approach the doors with the stuff I'm carrying with all these people in the way. Now on the platform. I look for the grey escalators but they're out of action again, I'll have to walk across the platforms, under the arches, across the track to the platform for the main line trains going South and East. We actually had to walk across the track, the grey paint on the metal work, the big rivets sticking out of the metal rails, the crunchy gravel underfoot, the deadly third rail, crimson red. Then we learnt that there was a pedestrian subway.. Never mind, here comes the train. It is another double-decker but quite different, much bigger. I jump on it and feel observed. I'm not wearing any distinctive clothing, I've left my black trench-coat and boots in my case, which is this unwieldy bag. My guitar is in plain sight, though, or its case is, which does seem to attract attention in the way of furtive sideglances. I have to remember to take it with me, I must not forget. I have some vague memory that I have done this in a similar circumstance, or something like the same circumstance in another instance of this world, in another throw of the dice -can't explain it any better.

I get off the train and find myself in this which is supposed to be the bus station, not the train station. I need the train -or the bus, going North, but cannot find the right place and am not sure how to look for it. There's a bus over there, at least it is facing in the right direction. I will take that. It is a red bus, like a London bus, with numbers in yellow indicating the route. I hear my footsteps, my boots clip-clop on the cobblestones. I am very, very lost....

to be continued -possibly.