The 7.25 to Kings Cross, or Down the Rabbit Hole

“Begin at the beginning”, the King said gravely, “and go on ‘til you come to the end: then stop”.

I’m right glad I’ve brought my notebook.  I know it’s only half an hour on the train, but I need something to distract me.  I need to write things down, keep things in order.  Keep them tight.

We’ve been doing Alice in Wonderland at school.  That book proper messes with your head.  Me working with the little kids, drawing big, daft pictures of the Red Queen and the White Rabbit.  You know what?  We’ve had some fun.  These kids, only just come in to the country, they’ve taken to Alice.  One of them said to me, “it’s like dreams” and I wonder whether Alice’s world is what England felt like to them kids when they first arrived.  Strange, surreal.

I read it when I were a kid myself.  It were in secondary school and the teacher had been talking about it.  I’d never come across it, only in Disney, and the teacher said the book were far more interesting than that.  When I went home, I asked me mam if I could go to the library.  “Sidique”, me mam said, “you can do, but you’re not going on your own”.  I went anyway, came out and put the book in my Tesco carrier bag. Didn’t want the lads at school to see the skinny, little kid I were, walking down the road with Alice in bloody Wonderland!

The woman opposite keeps looking at me- I wish she wouldn’t.  Staring at me, staring at my rucksack.  I move it closer to me, between my legs. 

I’ve sorted things for today.  Told the school I’m taking Naz for her antenatal appointment, told Naz I’m on a course for school in London.  I’ve arranged to meet the others at Kings Cross and we’ve made a tight plan.  We’ve got to keep things in order.  There’s too much chaos in this world.

In my head, I keep going over the chemistry I’ve needed to learn.  I know it off by heart.

Organic peroxides are organic compounds containing the peroxide functional group (ROOR’). If the R’ is hydrogen, the compound is called an organic hydroperoxide. Peresters have general structure RC(O)OOR. The O−O bond easily breaks, producing free radicals of the form RO. 

***

Schrodinger’s Cat

I bought the kids little boxes of crayons and colouring books for the journey.  They were that pleased it made me feel guilty.  They don’t really want much, they could be happy, staying back there.

Now they have their books, with those ugly, empty drawings, spread out over the table and they’re busy filling up the spaces with colour. 

Funny how they work at it so differently.  Riley is careful.  Her shading is rhythmic and light and never crosses the line.  Tayla likes her crayons to leave a thick, waxy mark, she doesn’t seem to notice the lines and is working on something I can’t see, in her head.  The ticket collector gave me a wink as he punched our tickets, unnerved me; but then I realised he was just letting me know that quiet kids are a bonus, especially on a long journey. 

I feel peaceful now, after all the madness and deciding.  All we can do is sit back and let the train do the work.  It’s nice, rocking along, watching the picture show of other places rushing past us.  I don’t have to think about the future, the train’s rushing us towards it and there’s nothing we can do.  Like we’re falling down a tunnel, watching all the bits and pieces of normal life flickering past. 

I couldn’t take that normal life anymore, I was filled up with it, there was no space left in me to pour in any more, I was overflowing with it.  I was like that cat in a box, dead and alive at the same time.  But when the lid was lifted, the cat was alive. 

I could have carried on, that’s what people do, days, weeks, years tick by and then you’ve made it, you’re dead.  I decided for all of us, we needed to feel something else.  People are mostly too scared to make their lives different. 

I couldn’t change anything for years.  You get caught.  I don’t understand these laws of the universe that say some people don’t matter; after years of it you start to believe it’s true.  I don’t want my girls thinking that way.  Truth is, people only care about themselves and will stamp all over you if it suits them and never look back at the mess they’ve made. 

***

“It’s no use going back to yesterday because I was a different person then.” – Alice.

I’ve lived an ordinary life, I’ve done ordinary things. I’ve loved my family and they’ve loved me.  There’s been a balance in my life that on one level makes the anger I feel hard to understand.  On the surface, I’ve always towed the line, but no one could know what I were feeling underneath.

I were often scared as a kid.  It were a real thing, a tangible thing; but for a long time, I weren’t really sure what I were scared of.  Me mam and our Hassan used to call the silences I had when I were really angry and scared, Sidique’s cut-offs.   “I wouldn’t go in the front room for a bit”, Hassan would say.  “Our Sid’s having a cut-off.”  What they didn’t realise and wouldn’t have understood were that I couldn’t speak during those times.  If I had, I honestly believe thick, black bile would have come spewing out my mouth.

Me mam were all about filling my life with sport and religion and study and I obediently did all that, like the dutiful son I am.  But it didn’t stop the silence.

When I met the others, it were like finding other bits of myself.  Bits that were missing and that once found, made me whole.  We was one.   Like me, they’d seen the onslaught of images on TV, read the bullshit, felt the pain, heard the lies.

When I were a teenager and I were supposed to be growing bigger, I felt like I were shrinking.  Like my whole world were diminishing.  Meeting the others - deciding we could do something about things - made me grow.  Sometimes, you just have to make a stand, without fear of what might happen.

It’s something I often wonder though – is what we become so inevitable from our start?  Can we not avoid ourselves?   A funny thing I’ve done for the last sixteen years, from the age of fourteen is every morning, I look in the bathroom mirror and I say out loud, “who am I?”  Then, I answer my own question with, “I myself, I myself.” 

As I’m writing, I realise I must have vocalised the words as the woman sitting opposite me, looks over at me again and then quickly looks away.

In my head, I recite.

Each peroxy group is considered to contain one active oxygen atom. The concept of active oxygen content is useful for comparing the relative concentration of peroxy groups in formulations, which is related to the energy content. In general, energy content increases with active oxygen content, and thus the higher the molecular weight of the organic groups, the lower the energy content and, usually, the lower the hazard.

***

Chaos

Chaotic, that’s how they described my life when I was a kid.  As if those sniffy adults who were judging me lived in a parallel universe where everything was neat and tidy and went according to plan.  Of course what they really meant was that I was poor.  I was running wild, they said.  Believe me, if I could have run I would have.  They didn’t do anything though, just waited for me to grow up and clear off. 

You deal with what’s in front of you, all the stuff that wraps around you.  Choice?  I couldn’t even see one.  The best thing was to be invisible; sometimes I was, too often I wasn’t. 

Order, the opposite to chaos.  There was a kind of order, my life looked messed-up from a distance, but it made sense. 

Chaos, I like that word, I like the idea of shaking everything up.  But it’s like those snow globes with those little models in the middle, shake them up and particles of plastic snow blurs everything up; it’s like the model is moving and changing, but gradually the snow floats down to the ground, and everything is just like it was before.

Now I know that there’s no such thing as chaos, just degrees of control.  We’re all swept along by life, hoping we’ll see the big shape its patterns are making.  We can try to change the pattern.  That’s what I’ve done.  Taken my kids and upped and left.  I’m doing the running for my kids like no one did for me.  I’m not looking back.  If I’ve made a mess, well, I have and there you go. 

For now we have prisms of colour falling from the window, light picking up the golden hairs on my daughters’ arms, as they fill their books, page by page, blue dogs, green cats, pink grass.   Our now is full of colour and no regret. 

***

"Oh dear, oh dear, I shall be too late.” – the White Rabbit.

The train’s slowed right down.  In fact, a couple of times, it’s stopped for a few minutes.  I’m not sure why.  We’re getting closer to London, but I can’t afford to be late.  The plans rely on good timing as most plans do.  What if it isn’t on time?  What does it change?

I look out the window for a minute and see the green blur of the passing fields, the pylons like huge, raggedy scarecrows.  Though, I think they offer no warding off of things.

I’m becoming acutely aware of the people around me. Their sweat, their perfume, the shine of their noses in the heat of the carriage.  I stop writing for a minute and see a bit of their lives.  The bored looking woman flicking through the magazine in front of her.  The man in the suit with his phone on full sound, barking orders each time he answers it.  The mother on the adjacent seat hemmed in by her two kids and their colouring books.  There’s something about the mother’s profile that reminds me of Naz and I wonder what kind of mother she’s going to be.  I don’t want to think about this.

I need not to think about the people either, I need to remove myself from them.  I must not forget I’m a soldier.  I don’t feel like a soldier; but I’m fighting a war, so I must be a soldier.

I’d put the notebook and pen down on the table in front of me for a minute and I’d looked out the window and I’d closed my eyes, but now I’m writing again.  I’m so hot.

The rhythm of the train gets into my bones and shakes them.  Da da da da, da da da da.  We’re going to be late.  We’re going to be late.

Acetone peroxide is an ingredient often used in explosives because of its ease of manufacture, despite its instability. It is notorious for its susceptibility to heat, friction, and shock.

***

Demons

Riley looks like me, Tayla behaves like me; but their dads must be in there somewhere too.   I try not to see that in them.  Not that I’m bitter or anything like that. 

We don’t talk about Riley’s father, she doesn’t ask.

I take Tayla to see her dad once a week.  Well, I used to, that won’t be happening again for a while.  We meet up outside the library in town.   Tayla’s dad never says much to me, sometimes he has his mum with him.   They go off for an hour or so, have a burger or something and Riley and me go into the library.  We like the art books best.  Reckon we’ve looked at all of them by now.  Riley likes the pictures of Madonnas and babies.  My favourite is Paul Klee, a tiny golden fish in a black sea surrounded by electric blue squiggles.  It gives me energy each time I look at it.  I know it so well now I can just close my eyes and look at it in my mind. 

Tayla is spitting out bits of brown crayon, she says she wanted to feel what it would chew like. 

Riley says she wants to draw a Madonna.  She’s found a blank page on the inside cover of her colouring book.  So far she has drawn the hands, I thought it was their faces she had been looking at.  I guess you never know what’s going on in someone else’s head.

Like that young bloke in the seat there, keeps looking at me.  I hate that, like I have to be pretty or something.  ‘A cat can look at a king’, that’s what my neighbour says when I ask her what she’s gawping at.

I wish magic was real sometimes, that there could be something that knew better and make things different; not even better, just different.  But that’s just in my head, not even worth thinking about what ifs; you have to sort out stuff yourself.

I try to sort my brain out sometimes, have a clear out, but you can’t just chuck old thoughts away.  I’ve heard that your brain can get holes in it; if you’re lucky the bad memories get burned away with the bits of brain.  But I don’t get that, everything has to go somewhere, doesn’t it?  Something can’t just turn into nothing, can it?

***

Alice – “How long is forever?”

White Rabbit – “Sometimes just one second.”

I’m not a commodity; we are not commodities.  I’m forsaken and I will forsake everything for what I believe.  They’ll call it an atrocity, an act of terrorism; but I’m doing what I believe is right.  What needs to be done has to be done. I’m a martyr for my brothers and sisters.

I’m so frightened.  I’m so certain.

I’m edgy and nervous.  I’m magnificent in the eyes of god. I pray, I pray, I pray amongst the prey.  I pray.

I don’t think any more, I pray.

The train’s slowing down and I pick up my rucksack, so I can get off quickly.  Part of me’s still that skinny boy in Leeds. Part of me’s still talking to the kids in the classroom about how to draw the White Rabbit’s ears and the Red Queen’s crown.

I wonder whether my wife will miss me, I wonder what my baby will be like.  I hope she’ll always be safe.  I hope she doesn’t ever meet a man like me. 

This second is forever. This moment is forever.

As the train draws in, I catch sight of the others on the platform and as I smile at them, I wonder if, like Alice, I’ll wake up and it’ll all be a dream.

***

Reality is blurred

I like these windows, they’ve got layers to them that makes everything blurry, that and the speed and my watery eyes.  Outside looks like a Paul Klee painting, blocks of colour, sort of higgledy piggledy, but not really; like how real life is.  When I turn away and look at everything inside the train, all sharp focus and grey and clear, it doesn’t feel real.  I can’t believe any of these other people are real and will get off the train and go about their lives like we will. 

I like looking at my reflection bouncing about, sometimes two mouths, sometimes four eyes, trees in my hair, bricks on my skin; it’s like I’m catching a glimpse of the real me, all the things I am and could be.

***

 

(Thanks to Wikipedia for the science.)