I can't remember how or who I was, I don't know the time or the place, just being swept up and whooshed, washed. Never stopping long enough, just stopping in time.
In truth, I know nothing, I know enough to know I am not like the ones below, the ones who swarm and crowd in the burning heat. I am so tired of the travelling, there is no rest no stopping, just the moving on, the moving on.
Dizzy when I stop, dizzy and bedraggled, drenched in sweat. It is so hot, so hot and the sun beats on my head from a clouded sky, the drizzle burns my skin like acid and I know where I should be and what I should be doing. I feel my way and the heat beats down and the stone floor, a river of lava under my feet. I long for the disorientating, the cool travelling to take me to another place. Here I am and here I will stay until I am done, until it is done and the cool will take me again, whoosh.
I keep moving my feet, the direction pulling, pulling, I must get there in time but it is so hot, and the rain beats down hard, scarring, melting my skin, burning holes in my clothes, changing my features. I see my reflection in a shop window. I am ashamed, I stink of this place, of ashes and heat. People avoid me, walking a wide path around me. Oh to be like them, blissful in ignorance and unaware of the heat and fire of this hell on earth.
Not much further now, not too far to go. I can see her, see her standing there and she is waiting too, waiting because she is late, but I am on time. I'm on time and I am coming. I am going to save her, this time the time is right. She checks her watch, the train is late but I am early. Her foot is tapping and her lips are pursed. She put make-up on this morning but tears have washed it all away. I watch her, and like the others she turns away.
There are birds here, they recognise me and flock to my feet. In my pocket crumbs turned to toast line the seams, I scatter them on the floor and they come to me, grateful.
She is agitated, something said last night, something un-meant, broken pieces on the floor and an empty bed, she is late again. Along the line the train rattles and clatters. Disturbed, the pigeons panic into flight. Existing outside of time I watch the feathers fall in graceful arcs, they drift down to the ground. The train is coming, I am watching, I step nearer, just a little. A single mote of down drifts silently to the ground and as it touches so do I. Falling, falling to the hot plate of concrete, shearing layers of skin. As I make contact, a sound escapes my parched lips. Oh, for the cool vortex to take me away. I lie and wait.
The train rushes in, sighing with my exhalation. She turns and sees me here, a glance behind, a worried look. I cannot breathe, come closer. I hear her groan aloud, she steps and stoops, holding her breath, so carefully folding back the layers of my clothes, her touch on my skin like fingers of flame, I hold my tongue. She strokes my head and whispers soothing words, reaching for her phone but I do not hear, my job is already done, she turns away to make her call.
I rise and once again the vortex takes me, stepping into the cool, I am one with the whoosh and memories return of kinder days, of light and shade and her.
I cannot remember when or who I am but know I travel onwards, onwards. Far below me underneath my swirling vortex the train has found its resting place, twisted, heaving metal mess, but she did not make the trip today.