A HUNDRED STEAM ENGINES

Last night I sat down, exhausted. The sun angled in through the blinds, and for a moment, everything was bright and gold.

My head was full. Sometimes in life it feels as though all the trains are arriving at the station together, and there’s just not enough room for everyone. That’s what it was like in that gold-painted moment - too many thoughts, not enough energy to shuffle and sort. And what, anyway, would be the point? I was already out of energy.

It isn’t fair you know. Two years of high drama, including trying to buy a house while living in other people’s, sick relatives, then finding our house has more problems than a maths book. Then, sewage floods our kitchen causing a huge insurance claim and a necessary hoik in our premium. Just as we’re settling back into a nice routine, my Dad is very sick, my Mum’s unable to walk and we’re suddenly all shuttling back and forth trying to look after her and get her to the hospital, and… well, all the trains come chuffing in together don’t they?

Nobody’s fault of course. This is life in all its glorious unfairness. We’d just like a little break from it, if that were possible - just a nice six-month stretch where nothing happens. Perhaps a holiday - some island somewhere, with white sand and cool lemonade. Perhaps a place with mountains and lakes and pubs with roaring fires and tales of old. Or perhaps just here, in the house, with the golden light of a sunset trapped for more than a moment between the slats of the Venetian blind.

I closed my eyes and saw the steam of a hundred engines, billowing from the curved roof an old train station. Up it swept into a pink evening sky, where a soft yellow sun was falling to shadow.