The Midnight Train — Nineteen Months

Nineteen Months

Charlie in the pub after work telling Wilbur about the end of the Beatles… Wilbur on his bike making an unnecessary right turn to avoid going down Ecclesall Road…Launching a children’s section with displays of Dr. Seuss and A Wizard of Earthsea…Working, working, working…On the distant horizon there was a World Cup in Mexico…a satellite in China…a cyclone in Pakistan…Then in the foreground Edith swallowing her pills down with her milky tea and a slice of cake…On his own on the bench at the cemetery…working in the back office with Charlie…lying in bed awake and alert and hearing the milk float drive down an empty morning street… packed crowds in the bookshop on a Saturday…passing the waterfall in Endcliffe Park…Wilbur getting a phone call from Maggie, saying she was unhappy in London and coming home…one thing rushing and fading into another…a whole life of ellipses…every arrival its own departure…