Written on the 09:36 to Peterborough

I have been forced in to writing.
An empty page lined in banana leaf green stares at me.
Mockingly.
Taunting me.
Because it knows as well as I do that I even though I have nothing to write, I must.
Because I have uncapped my pen
With a grandiose flourish that was perhaps too grandiose for a standard, blue Bic. Which is perhaps undeserving of flourishes of any kind.
By now, the other passengers are staring at me with unveiled curiosity.
Waiting to see what I’m going to write.
So I pretend to think.
And write down ‘So I pretend to think’.
I look at my co-passengers.
They seem to be satisfied with my scribbling and have gone back to reading the paper and sending text messages.
So I begin to make secret little notes about them.
About the man’s scuffed leather briefcase and the girl’s blue scarf.
I soon tire of that, but I can’t stop
I’m in the groove now
I have to keep writing
So write I do
‘Google’
‘Faircloth Ltd.’
‘Blue elephant’
Words and phrases linked only by the pen that inked them.
I look up.
And see the man with the scuffed leather briefcase.
He’s writing in a cheap spiral notebook with an expensive pen.
Our eyes meet.
We give each other what we think are subtle once-overs and then look away.
We both write something down.
I write ‘Funny lime green shirt’
I hope he’s written something nice.