A Twist In Her Sobriety

It’s all about mood. The colour of her eyes, the sound of her voice, her folded arms, the shadow of the old railway viaduct… that mood, on a clear autumn day. A grand piano, the deep mahogany tone of it. She stands with her arms folded under the viaduct, waiting for a train that never comes. The grass has grown, literally, over the track. She moves to look up the road, hand on one hip, waiting. A gypsy caravan has long gone, the boat has sailed. Maybe, just maybe, it’s going to rain. There is that smell in the air: the anticipation of autumn, the living, breathing and dying that goes on all at once… fungus laying claim to the trees, kind of relishing the dying heat of summer and the waking frost of winter. It is at once the rotting hand of summer and the rising hand of winter. Those railway tracks above are old, faded, corrupted… no-one ever stops here any more. So what is she waiting here for? She seems immune to the world at large, looking at the sky, going with the mood. She turns, looks right at you, challenging, an unspoken question: Are you coming with me?

(Police want to know the whereabouts of this woman. She was last seen by this viaduct, on the 6^th October, 1988.)