essayel | Playing "The Game" (Reply)

metallumai wanted to play a prompt game :D and since she's the bees knees, the cat's pyjamas and all the other superlatives but needs a good sharp poke to get her writing again, of course I signed up to play.

I asked her to write about something given to a 'thrift shop' [charity shop this side of the pond] in error and her story is here!

She asked me to write a "One Room" narrative where nobody leaves or enters. This reminded me very strongly of something so I used it as inspiration and have, to be honest, interpreted the 'One Room' bit a trifle loosely. So here you go:

Clive checked his watch when he heard the sound of the engine. The train was early, but then so was he. It had seemed best under the circumstances. Craning his neck, he looked along the track, shading his eyes against the bright summer sunlight.

The express train - and it was slowing, pulling up, coming to a halt instead of speeding through with a rush and a whoop. Steam hissed and he caught his breath at the scents of fire, coal and hot metal. Behind it somewhere, probably held up as well, would be the service he and Matthew had intended to catch. The little train that stopped at every village. The one that, Matthew assured him, would take them safely to Oxford where they would, Matthew was certain, be taken in
by Matthew's cousins.

Eight o'clock, Matthew had said. "I'll meet you on the platform at ten to eight. Don't be late. We'll be gone before they know it. We'll be fine. We'll be free. We'll be together."

It was ten to eight now. Clive put his watch away and kicked his carpet bag, quite gently. He peered along the track again wondering what could have happened to stop the London express from swooshing past.

"Where are you Matty?" he murmured, beginning to be worried, and he resumed his seat on the horse trough, between the tubs of pot margiolds, tucked down behind the hot bare concrete of the platform. The sun shone on the dusty road, birds sang, steam drifted silently across the track and into the hayfield. No one left and no one came. Such a beautiful scene could inspire a poet, if there had been one to see it.

Adlestrop by Edward Thomas

Yes, I remember Adlestrop –
The name because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop – only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.