4 May 2012
The train was at a station and new passengers were shuffling down the isle. A few eyed the seat next to her, but the sight of a man struggling to breath, and a woman who seemed to have been crying encouraged them to find alternative seating. As the train pulled away a man appeared from the vestibule who was determined to take the chair, he looked down to see a man in angular black suit grinning at him as if he were prey, the man moved on.
"So," She said, dabbing away the tears that had collected under her chin, "What's my place in all this?" "Place?" He said, turning his head slightly, raising an eyebrow. He was playing dumb, they both knew it, she played along. "You're the cleaner, he's the damned, what am I?" She was fearing the answer. "Please don't tell me I'm going hell as we'll." "No, no, noooo," He chuckled. She wasn't entirely reassured. "Look, my business is correction, not justice." He flicked a hand in the direction of the middle aged man, who flinched as if he was expecting to be struck "Eternal damnation is not strictly within my remit, it's more of a... hobby ." "You can do that?" She frowned at him, "You won't get in trouble with your, um, boss?" She was beginning to feel a little foolish. "Boss?" He frowned back, imitating her expression. She raised her eyes and nodded her head upwards a couple of times, wishing she hadn't as she did it. He sighed, and looked at her very earnestly, she felt like an ignorant child. She was expecting to be ridiculed, her husband would have pounced on even the slightest slip or show of ignorance, she had found herself keeping quite around the house. She squinted her eyes and tightened her mouth, bracing herself for humiliation, but It became apparent he was waiting for her to speak. She relaxed her face, he nodded at her raising his eyebrows, encouraging her. For a moment she was nonplused but it finally dawned on her why she had felt so foolish and what he was expecting from her. "There," She paused, reading his expression, making sure she was saying the right thing. His face brightened a little. "is no God?" "Correctamundo." He laughed. "Oh," She said, looking puzzled. She had never been a church goer, but she believed there was a God, it was part of the fabric of her world. "Really? All the churches, all the religions, it's all meaningless." "Yep," He beamed, "It's all complete bollocks." She opened her mouth to speak, but he stopped her. "Hold on, I don't want to get into all that right now." He held up a hand, leaned out into the isle, checking the carriage again, then looked at his watch. She huffed in frustration, questions were piling up to be asked. "Almost time." He waggled his eyebrows, and rubbed his hands together. "Ordinarily, you would never know I existed, I'd simply un-fuck what ever was fucked and fuck off. But, you required direct intervention and I thought we could have a some fun. You know, break up the monotony of all these eternal temporal and causal corrections." "I'm not sure I'm having fun." She grumbled. He ignored her. "You asked me what your place in all this was, the simple answer is, is that you are in the wrong place." He had folded his arms and settled back in the chair. The train was pulling away from another station, gathering speed as it crossed the last of patch of country side before it began picking its way through the multitude of stations that impeded it progress to the heart of the city. "Were, exactly, am I supposed to be?" She said a little haughtily. "Somewhere else." He smiled, "You may lead a revolution that brings down western civilisation, you may deflect an insect from it's insecty business or redistribute the atoms of a gust of wind in a certain way. It could be anything. All I can say is, that to ensuring the continued correct functioning of this continuum, you need to be somewhere else." "How do I get to, somewhere else?" She said, tiring of the conversation. "Stop being here?" He ventured. Her mouth narrowed and her eyebrows lowered themselves onto her eyes. She started to tell him how irritating he was being, but she realised he wasn't listening to her. He was leaning across the trembling form of the middle age man, looking out through the window, craning his neck watching landmarks pass. One in particular caught his eye and he followed its passing shape until it was out of sight. He checked his watch, and looked pleased. He put his face close to the middle aged man. "You're so fucked!" He squeaked with joy. The middle aged whimpered, tried to speak then began gurgling and choking again. The man in the black suit sat heavily back into his chair. She was scowling at him her face pale, fist balled. "What?" He said, head forward, arms wide.
The Sensible Girl - Part 4 • Opuss № I