Get me there on time

 

When I have to go somewhere I like to get there early. Preferably 24 hours early or a week even.

Today I had to go from my city to another big city to meet a marketing executive who said she can increase my book sales. The journey consists of a taxi from home to the railway station, a train ride lasting more that an hour and another taxi ride to her office at the other end.

I was keen to create a good impression and get there on time. The night before I prepared all my business papers, records of book sales, and other documents and even got dressed and wore my best tie and slept standing up by the front door ready for the pre-booked taxi. I had phoned the executive's secretary and suggested I come early and spend the night with her; but she said it would not be ethical. That is, to spend the night with the executive and/or her secretary.

At the railway station I was annoyed whilst waiting for the train with all the advice on the loudspeakers and on the electronic boards. Advice like:

The weather is very hot today. Make sure you carry some water with you to avoid dehydration which can affect your health.

Also ensure that you wear a hat or other head covering, especially if you are light-haired (presumably meaning bald as a coot).

If you loose a shoe, do not walk with just one shoe as this may cause you to unbalance and fall; or it would wear out the sock in the shoe-less foot. To avoid this please ensure you have another pair of shoes with you.

Why can't they just bring the train along and let's get moving?

On the train I got even more irritated by a man talking loudly on his cell-phone. These things should be banned in open-spaces. This is the one-sided conversation.

Thank you for looking after Daisy for me. How is she?

Is she? Oh dear ... she does sometimes bark and growl ... she gets upset when I'm not there.  

Have you fed her? Give her another biscuit ... she's still growling?

Try singing to her ... yes, singing ... it often quietens her down ...

Try Presley songs ... You ain't nothin' but a hound dog, Cryin' all the time, You ain't nothin' but a hound dog, Cryin' all the time, Well, you ain't never caught a rabbit and you ain't no friend of mine.

Is she still barking? Do it in a Presley voice. Yes, you can Mary. Just try ... Old Shep ... Daisy likes this one ...

I thought this idiot would go through Presley's whole repertoire just to annoy me. I had a good mind to give him a piece of my mind but I could ill afford it. Besides, he might well bite my leg.

I eventually did get to see the marketing executive on time. She asked me why are my books so generously priced? I explained that the intention was not to make money but just to cover printing costs. She thought I was an idiot. She did not say it but implied it by her demeanour. She suggested I encourage my readers to write positive reviews of my books on AMAZON.

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The Chain Of Events

 

It had been a long, hot and tiring train journey. The train had been delayed for over two hours because of engine failure, and the passengers had to wait there in the heat, with no refreshments or relief, until they brought a new locomotive to replace the faulty one. It got so hot and stuffy that Father Ignatius took off his clerical collar and put it in his pocket, and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt.

When they finally arrived at the station it was well past ten o'clock at night. An exhausted Father Ignatius took a taxi to his hotel.  

It was a small inn, which is all he could afford. Most of the staff had gone and the kitchen was closed. There wasn't even a porter to carry his luggage. The night-receptionist gave him a key and told him to go up to the third floor.

When he got to his room the priest turned the key in the lock but the door would not open. He tried again, and again, to no avail. It was as if the door was locked from inside. He was about to give up, and face the long journey down the stairs again, when suddenly the door opened.

Standing there in her night clothes was a young woman holding tight at her dressing gown. Rather foolishly she had opened the door.

"What do you want?" she said.

He looked at his key and the door number and, "I ... I ... I believe this is my room!" he muttered showing her his key.

"Who are you?" she asked, ignoring his explanation, and closing the door slightly.

"I'm Father Ignatius ..." he replied touching his neck and realising he did not have his white collar.

"Father? Father?" she repeated, getting somewhat agitated, "you're not my father!"

"I'm a priest," he replied picking up his luggage from the floor and deciding to leave, "I'll check with the receptionist. I'm sure all will be well in the end."

"That's what they all say," she cried, "my solicitor, my friends ... everyone ..." and she started crying.

He realised that the wise thing to do is stand still and say nothing. Let her cry until she calmed down. After a minute or so she said, "go away!" and shut the door.

The next morning he was at his table finishing breakfast in the dining room. She entered the room and made a bee-line to his table. As she approached, he stood up. It was a courtesy his mother had impressed on him years ago when he was a little boy. "Always stand up in such occasions," she taught.

"May I join you?" she asked.

As they sat down, she continued, "I wish to apologise for my bad behaviour last night!"

Not the sort of statement a priest would like overheard in a crowded dining room; especially since now he had his clerical collar on.

She explained that she was in town to go to Court to fight for custody of her son. Her husband cheated on her and she was going through a most acrimonious divorce. When she was at work, he called at home and took away their son who was being cared for by the nanny. She had not seen him for two years. Her husband, a rich businessman, had argued in Court that she was not a fit mother to look after the two year old boy.   

She was struggling to hold back her tears. After several legal attempts this was perhaps her last chance to regain her son whom she had lost. In the bitter divorce that ensued he had become an unwilling pawn to be used in the battle between them.

The priest said a silent prayer then, hesitantly, because he did not know the woman or her beliefs or religion, he said, "I believe there is a higher power who is in control of everything He has created. We call Him God. What I would advise is that you trust Him. You may not believe in God, but somehow, if you possibly can, trust Him. I'll do the believing on your behalf. Trust Him, that His will be done. Whatever His will is!"

He doubted that what he said did help her. She did not say much. She thanked him and left the table without having breakfast.

About two months later or so, when he was back at his Parish church of St Vincent, he received a letter containing a generous cheque.

She said she had got his name and address from the receptionist at the hotel. She had won the Court hearing and little Timothy was restored back to her with the father having visiting rights. She added, "you were right that night at my door when you said all will be well in the end".

She promised to visit Father Ignatius with her son next time she was in town.

The train of thoughts

Trains these days where I live are very modern indeed. The compartments are open-plan, very large and well lit; warm, clean and bright; they have overhead monitors everywhere displaying all sorts of information like the next destination, location of restaurants and toilets on the train, safety information and so on. The windows are very large and clean and every seat has an electric connection for you to plug in your laptop or cell phone to charge the battery; and there's free wifi throughout your journey.

Yet, there are some touristy places which still run the old fashioned steam trains with their old fashioned compartments well preserved as they were in real life some 60 or more years ago.

These are full sized trains which were in service another lifetime away. They are kept in operation and well maintained by teams of volunteers running various organisations for the preservation of railway history on a charitable basis. The trains normally run a short route of some 10 or 20 miles through the countryside and tourists ride on them just to go there and back again.

I settled comfortably into one of these old style compartments.

Let me describe it to you. Unlike the modern open-plan compartments; these old style trains have a number of separate small compartments inside each carriage, with a narrow corridor running along-side the whole length of the carriage. Each small compartment is about 4 metres in lengths and about 2 metres wide. The compartments contain two large settee type seats accommodating four people sitting side-by-side facing another four people sitting opposite them. Depending on where you are sitting you would either travel in the direction the train is going; or would be travelling backwards, as it were. Only two people sit on the far side of the compartment, facing each other, near the small windows. The others are either squashed in the middle of the "settee" or are at the other end of the compartment, near the sliding door; leading to the corridor running alongside the length of the carriage. So basically, each compartment can contain four people sitting facing another four people - eight in all.

Anyway, as I was saying before I engaged into this elaborate description of the compartment, I sat comfortably by the window facing the direction the train was going to travel - that is facing forwards.

Pretty soon four people entered the compartment and sat opposite me; that is travelling backwards as it were. They were an elderly man with a Tom Selleck moustache who sat next to the window, opposite me. Let me explain ... the man with the moustache sat opposite me, not the moustache by itself! Then next to him sat a priest wearing a hat. Then a rotund lady in her fifties who sat next to the priest. And an elderly lady who sat next to her.

Minutes later a woman and her daughter came in. The woman asked me politely if it is OK for her daughter to sit next to the window. The obvious answer, me being polite and a gentleman, would be, "No ... go and sit elsewhere in another compartment!" But there was a priest there, so I smiled and got up.

The girl sat by the window with her mother beside her. I sat next to the mother and soon enough a large man came in and sat beside me. He sat with his legs wide open. Why do some men do that?

This meant that I was squashed in the middle of the seat with the fat man on my right and the mother on my left. I tried desperately not to get too close to the woman in case she got the wrong idea that I was being somewhat too friendly. But the fat man on my right kept pushing me against her making himself more comfortable in more than his allotted space on the seat.

I realise that the settee style seat did not have demarcation lines, like a frontier between nations, outlining the space allotted to each passenger. But if there were such lines it was obvious that the fat man's backside well and truly invaded my space across the frontier between us. In nation states this would amount to a declaration of war. But in a train compartment, and with my naturally cowardly characteristics, I was left there retreating slowly sideways towards the woman on my left frontier; yet exerting enough pressure with my backside on the seat to ensure that I did not retreat sideways so much that I would invade her territory and risk declaration of war from her side.

Every now and then the train would rock so much to my left that my backside would loose all friction with the seat and I would fall sideways towards the woman. I'd then immediately apologise and move back to my right trying in vain to regain my lost territory from the fat man sitting there with his legs wide open.

This slow journey to hell, which was meant to be a touristy pleasure trip, lasted for what must have seemed an eternity.

The train moved slowly on the rails singing its monotonous song ... clackety clack ... clackety clack ... clackety clack ... as it danced rocking left and right on the rails. Every now and then it would perform one of its faux-pas and swing violently left hurling me towards the woman like a floppy rag doll.

For some reason, the train never swung to the right towards the man. It was explained to me later that this had something to do with the swerve of the journey. A bit like when athletes run round the track and always seem to run left round the bends because they are always running anti-clockwise.

Anyway, as I sat on that train of Purgatory it entered a tunnel through a mountain. Suddenly from bright sunlight coming through the windows we were in total darkness. Although the train had electric lights, for some reason they did not come on. It was so pitch black in that compartment. So dark that you could not see anything. You could not even see the darkness that was there.

This lasted for about 30 seconds or so.

When the train eventually got out of the tunnel, and our eyes adjusted to the light and we could see each other again, I discovered I was no longer there.

The elderly man with the Tom Selleck moustache was there. So was the priest with the hat. The rotund lady and the elderly one too ... all sitting at their usual place. The woman and her daughter to my left were there also; and so was the wide-legged fat man on my right.

But I was no longer there.

And being absent ... I did not know how to finish this story.

Rocking on a Train

Why is it that wherever I am, on a bus, a train, walking the dog in the park, or wherever, people always stop and have a chat with me. Complete strangers start a conversation about any subject and before long they tell me their life story. Do I have a face that says: " I am interested in you. Tell me about you"? Usually, I think I carry a face that says, "I am not in the very least interested in you. Please leave me alone and mind your own business." But somehow, this does not seem to translate with the people I meet and they tend to think I am interested in them.

The other day, for instance, I was sitting in an old fashioned train with separate compartments. My compartment was empty and I hoped I'd have some time during this long journey to finish reading "Les Miserables" by Victor Hugo. As you know, it is a big book requiring a lot of patience, total lack of interruptions, and a long train journey from here to nowhere just to spend the time alone reading. Another big book which I had planned to read once is "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy. I started it once or twice, but never managed it all the way through. Eventually, I saw the film on TV with the subtitles on; so effectively I can say I have read it.

Anyway, I had settled down on the train with "Les Miserables" and as the train pulled out of the station a man came into the compartment and sat opposite me. He wore blue jeans and a white T shirt. He had long hair, a beard, and I noticed on his neck he had a tattoo of a guitar. I glanced up to see him, then looked down into my book pretending not to have noticed him.

After a moment or two of silence he said, "Rock and Roll is not dead!"

I ignored him. But this did not satisfy him. He repeated, "I said Rock and Roll is not dead, mate. Did you hear me?"

I looked up and replied, "I did not know he was unwell. I'm glad to hear he has pulled through."

Obviously, he did not understand my sarcasm because he continued, "Long live Rock and Roll!"

I said, "Yes ... I agree."

He then asked me, "Who is your favourite Rock and Roll singer mate?"

For a start, I do not like being referred to as mate. I am no anyone's mate, or friend. Especially someone whom I have never met before and hope never to meet again.

It is like those people who phone you at home trying to sell you something; I think they are called telemarketer. They inevitably start by calling me by my first name and asking me how I am, have I had a good day.

My first instinct is to say, "Mind your own business about how I am; and it was a good day until now that you have interrupted my peace!" But my politeness comes to the fore and I mumble something or other inane; and before I know it the telemarketer is telling me his life story and how happy he is now since he has fitted the new triple-glazing windows to his house, (or whatever else he happens to be selling), and would I not like to be in similar ecstatic bliss by buying the same product.

I usually end the conversation short by saying it is not a good time to discuss purchases because I am totally distraught having just buried my pet wasp which I found dead early this morning.

Anyway, back to my train of thoughts which have been temporarily de-railed by my own interruptions. This guy in my compartment asked me who is my favourite Rock and Roll singer. My mind went blank and for some reason I said: "Bing Crosby."

He looked at me blankly and asked, "Is he solo or with a band?"

I was caught in my own tangled web, so I said, "He used to be with Bob Hope."

"Never heard of him. What song is he famous for?"

"He sang White Christmas with Danny Kaye!" I said unconvincingly hoping this conversation would end.

"Did they do Woodstock?" asked my rail companion. 

"Probably one of the supporting acts," I said with some authority.

"Great man," he said, "rocking all over the world!"

I looked down at my French book, "Les Miserables" and said, "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!"

He said, "You what?"

I smiled and said, "Status Quo!"

"That's right mate," he replied, "Rocking all over the world!" as he got up and left the train which had reached his destination.