Trolleyed

After twenty years of separation, the only things they still had in common were the memories. So when they agreed to meet, they lubricated worn out cogs with pints brimmed with bitter and bottles of Shiraz, until the wheels started turning and the memory banks ran dry.

Fugitives from the present, they sprinted headlong for the barbed wire fences of their confines, searchlight-dodging their way to temporary freedom. They leapt over lovelessness, rolled beneath routine and rebounded off the remote controls of Sky+ lounges, for a crazed dash into the hinterlands of yesteryear.

How the fires burned in those hours, for what was, what had been, what had ceased to be. Like some 'Wicker Man' sacrifice, they danced farewells to the present, fanning its flames with who they once were. 

Not once did they enquire for the other's health, job status, partner, or abode. They were complicit in their denial of time's gradual erosion, filling holes, like a master plasterer, beelining for the strung out cracks in their conversation.

As evening wore on, the fuel gauge began flashing red. Vapours remained. A bar bell sounded, a yawn broke free and something was suddenly becoming nothing. Two finger-stained glasses were being pinched and squeezed as if sponges for a top-up.

Silences, save for the clink of a barman fingering the empties around their table, loudly reminded them that they should make their 'way to the door now please.' The door, a portal to a reality forgotten some hours before, once again came in to view. The winter draughts of chilled air shuffled along the sticky floor and crept up the back of their necks, before smacking their faces with a reddish hue. Then as quickly as they swigged the warm, nursed dregs before them, they grieved their passing with unblinking, silent stares; until they nodded and stood and stumbled towards the exit.

Whoever had witnessed their coming together that night must have surely felt entertained. Pairing like Bluetooth, wireless connected and free, they had fused. However, a dredging had taken place, one that had uncovered disregarded selves, like bent trollies and old scattered Converse surfacing in river beds one rainless summer, there now for all to see, in all their rusted, soiled glory.

And whoever witnessed them there that night must have known where they were going to meet, followed them in, been eavesdropping and taking notes - someone with a reason, a husband perhaps, or a wife. Someone who might have once tirelessly dragged a weekly trolley around in a shrunken dream, was wearing faded American trainers, someone now tiring of the children.

Kissing outside the station before departing, they slid fingers down the frosty brickwork searching for something to hold on to. Briefly it was felt, and lapped up like a thirsty dog, all tongue and noise. Not even a passerby asking for directions to the station stopped the quenching, not even a glance in his direction was paid.

Train carriage, halfway along. Two sat. One looked at the other; the other peered down – iPhone-giggling. Her lips were still tingling from the goodbye kisses, and the taste inside her still lingered. She rolled her tongue in all directions, hunting for verification of deeper traces of what had just been. The eyes darted around in their sockets as if blinded and unable to control themselves, until they persuaded her mind to hook on to his memory.

Eventually they came to rest on the back pages of a newspaper in front of her. A gentleman repeatedly cleared his throat and snapped the pages tight in a vain attempt to straighten the creases, his face concealed by a red top headline and a footballer's delight. Above him, in the window, her distorted reflection confirmed what she remembered: time's acceleration, her sex appeal grinding to dust

Next stop was hers. Next stop was his. And the biting breezes of this countryside air forced her neck to sink into a bound woollen scarf and high collar, like a turtle retreating to the shell. Clouds parted before her and revealed a clearing. The North Star beamed bright and pointed a different way home, back whence she’d come, where feint footsteps quickened in the thickening gloom. She shivered. She shivered once more. 'Just over the moon-soaked field and I'm there,' she thought.