The place I most like to read is not one of comfort. It’s
not a hot bath, it’s not snuggled up in bed nor is it out in the sunshine. I
like to read on trains. On trains the world rushes past; the business man and
woman talk sternly about work, the women who have been shopping bustle about comparing their bargain buys and the football fans grumble or celebrate
depending on the day’s result.
And you can just sit there. Just take it all in.
Surrounded by the flux, the life that trains provide. The
millions of feet tramping on and off all heading somewhere different, thinking
something different, living different lives. I love the crush of strangers,
standing so close but so far away. And there I sit, one in a hundred, only
knowing what I’m thinking and where I’m going, reading about lives that could
be theirs.
In a crowd like that I wish I could read minds. Glancing at
faces and wishing to know their story. Where are they going? Who do they love?
What did they do today? The whole of humanity lives on trains, every character
that has ever been written about. Alas, I will never know their stories; I will
never know what plagues them, what makes them smile or what they wish for.
Maybe I should just stick
to books.
