Content warning: this article contains themes of abuse

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I met a man on the train to Cambridge

Slumped in front of me like a neglected marionette

He guzzled Peroni while spewing his prose

Being near Ely station, I stared out at the pastoral horizon

My attempt to deflect his attention in vain

His accent was thick, yet his cadence enveloped me

Speaking in waves of intensity, gesticulating with humorous latency

Pivoting sporadically between tangents

Lobbing questions to the gallery of passengers, met with absence

Broken only once my sympathy for the interloper had overflowed

Once I interjected, his frantic diatribe soothed

Tunnelling his words towards me, the carriage fell into soft focus

He inquired where I was headed, my name, age, occupation

After the inquisition ceased, his eyes wandered to that same horizon

Black absorbed the surrounding periphery, as if a spotlight shone upon him

From his spontaneous stage, he laid out his confession

It happened years ago,

He didn’t know

They paid him to go stow it,

Why would he even ask?

He broke down and needed to check,

It wasn’t him who put them in there

They were young and scared,

He didn’t know why he left

He never knew their fate,

What was he meant to do?

Concluding his admission, he resumed eye contact;

“Dreams of them keep you up at night

See their faces at the foot of your bed

Eyes poised to pierce your skull

They speak but their mouths don’t move

The words in isolation are empty

In cacophony, they sing an eternal fugue

Listen so might you leave the world unseen”

After the train pulled into Ely, my interloper stumbled onto the platform

From my seat, I observed his spotlight extinguish

An oppressive silence stifled the carriage

A silence I’ve kept with me since

Inherited from my neglected interloper

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Image: Keelan Worwood