Three people

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The Spreader

I was sitting in the last seat on the train. Not the last available seat but the very last seat. Coach 6, seat 14, any further back and I'd be on the track. God knows what happened to seats 1-13, maybe they were on the roof. I was so far back those at the front would arrive in Lisbon a full minute before I would. The man in the window seat was a spreader, holdalls and carrier bags sprawled around his huge legs, which were spread-eagled across into my leg space. Obviously if I were not quite so British, I would have said something, but as I am, I just squeezed into the available space and grinned and bore it. In fact, I did better than that, I was soon snoozing gently as the train raced through the Portuguese sunset. I think the rustle of the newspaper woke me up. I looked to see my travelling companion was perusing the lonely hearts column in the paper. Unlike any I’d ever scene before these ads had pictures accompanying them. Pictures that revealed rather more of the lonely hearts than I felt was appropriate for a train journey. The man next to me was growling his approval. And all I could think was, I'm was glad both hands were clearly visible.

The Cabin Crew 

Her long sleeves were not enough to hide the bandages that were doing their best to hide the scars, that she herself had inflicted. She shouldn't be here, she knew it, her colleagues knew it and her face showed it. She’d only been out of hospital three days, but the company had told her they wouldn’t pay sick leave for self-inflicted wounds, but the wounds were just the symptoms, the cause was a much larger illness, a deeper malaise.
The last thing she needed on her first day back was a two-hour delay and one of those bolshie customers who thought they knew their rights. But that is exactly what she got. Her eyes glistened with tears as she tried to keep two people calm. He was right, a two-hour delay should mean some refreshments, but her company would never authorise such a move. She smiled a smile so fake it could have been sold on a Sunday market. She wanted it to be real, she felt his pain, but hers was worse. Her mouth said sorry but her brain thought about the blade she’d play with in the dead of that night.

The Beggar

“No legs,” he said in Portuguese, “I've got no legs.” I don't know why he was telling me this, I mean I could see it quite clearly for myself. As if to emphasis the point he lifted up the blanket and let one of his stumps dance around for me.
“Money,” he said, holding out his hand. His eyes pleading with me, shinning out of a puffy, red, alcoholic’s face.

“Money,” he repeated but I’d heard him the first time, I just wasn't in the habit of giving money to beggars, legless or not.
He put out his hand offering me a chance to shake it. I turned my back on him, not wishing to encourage him further but it didn’t work. He manoeuvred his wheelchair around me so his big green eyes were staring into mine again. Again he offered his hand, not for money but wanting a handshake. Thinking it might get rid of him, I took his. His skin was rough and his grasp strong. He yanked me in towards him so I could smell the alcohol on his breath, and see the burst blood vessels of his face.
He said something in Portuguese that I was quite glad I didn't understand. I tried to pull my hand away but he kept hold of it, pulling me closer to him. I could see into his eyes now, into his soul. It wasn’t pretty. He let my hand go and a scarpered away leaving my coffee half drunk and my heart pounding.

The Duty Free Shop

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I've never been responsible for missing a flight before, I’ve only missed them when the airlines have messed up. But today I missed my flight and it was all my fault. I know you are meant to get to the airport two hours before your flight time, but when I have an early morning flight, I kind of try to make savings here and there so I can eek out a few extra minutes in my huge hotel bed.

I knew Lisbon airport was small, surely I could get there just an hour before take off. Sunday morning the traffic wouldn't be so bad, so surely I wouldn't need twenty minutes in the taxi, surely I could have just one more cup of coffee at breakfast. But that second cup sent me running to the toilet, the streets were deserted but it was red light day, you know that one day in the year when every traffic light says stop just for you. And Lisbon airport has had a make over. What once was a cute little airport, is now a huge confusing maze with distances between important points that would have a long distance runner puffing for breath. I dropped my bag and then did the fifteen hundred metres to the security check, going up three blind alleys on the way. Belt off, laptop out, coins in the box, step through the metal detector, all fine, but then the five words no one wants to hear.
“Is this your bag sir?”
Damn I forgot my contact lens solution.
Surely one bottle of contact lens solution didn't justify my whole bag being emptied, re x-Rayed and swabbed, but apparently it did.
I was now down to twenty minutes before take off, not a lot of time sure, but just enough.
Wrong.

I was suddenly feeling like I was in a bastardised version of a Clash song.
All lost in the duty free shop. 
I hate those airports where the duty free shop is clamped on to security so you have to go through it whether you want to or not, and then they wind a path through like a meandering river complete with oxbow lakes, a path that all passengers must take or risk being eaten by the Christian Dior crocodiles or the John Paul Gautier piranhas. I’d foolishly gone off piste. I thought I could defeat the system, take a short cut but anyone who’s tried to go against the arrows in Ikea will know that I should have known better.  I was paying the price or my folly, I was in the Toblerone wilderness, discovering a whole new civilisation of strange M and M creatures.  I heard them announce my name, threatening to offload my luggage. I was so close but still so far away. Each way I turned I was faced with walls of spirits or cigarettes. Sweat dripped off me, my bag seemed heavier, my feet were wading through some sticky stuff that turned out to be a spilled bottle of Malibu.

It was hopeless, a lost cause, but then I saw an opening.  The way out. An escape. I was free. Maybe I could still make it. I had to run the gauntlet of an army of overly made up women armed with some sort of spray guns, but it had to be worth the risk. Except. I wasn’t out at all, I was back at security, back where I started. I waved goodbye to my flight. 

The Fairground at night

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Another very short piece inspired by a writing task on my course. 

Locked away behind swinging doors, ghouls, ghosts, witches and warlocks scare no one but themselves. The fears hidden, the trains are empty - stopped at signals for the night. The white spirits dance on the dark walls and the luminous lettering gently loses its memory.

Next to the Ghost Train the Waltzers have stopped dancing, no flipping stomachs with snatched kisses. No longer spinning to a merry tune, they sit apart from each other, noting the others have seen better days with slashed seats, bruised bars and garish paint chipping off stainless steel.

The pirate ship hangs upside down in the air, to empty the terror built up after a rough night on the high seas, and to save it from being sunk by the rain that is beginning to pitter-patter, spit and splatter around the park. The pirates have all gone home to mum, but some of them left their tea behind.

Once the tallest ride in the fair, the Ferris Wheel sulks below the pirate ship. The gondolas sway in the breeze admiring the views, the lights from Weston and the orange glow of Cardiff. It creaks and groans, showing its age; it doesn’t like it when the breeze whips around its rough seats and through its arms.  

The stuffed bears stare out at the rides. Gaudy colours, cheap fur; rumour has it they’re made from pet cats that go missing in the dead of night. The guns that people pop to try to win the toys hang forlornly in their holsters; battered and bent, even the sharpest of shooters could never shoot them straight.

And finally the Funhouse. A silent hall of mirrors reflects itself into infinity, the moving stairway is stationary while a giant slide is going downhill fast. At the bottom, his body lies bleeding, lifeless, dead.

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