There is something indefinably lonely about train stations. Perhaps it is the fact that they are transitory places, holding a thousand impressions of humanity for only a few short moments before letting them go again, and so many people pass through them that there is a feeling of isolation despite the crowding: too many people have taken memories from this place, and there is nothing left for you but the faded imprints they have left behind. This feeling seeps into your soul until even the people rushing by to catch their train seem faded, almost incorporeal, even the man who asks you the time or the woman who accidentally spills her coffee on your shoes. And the fragmented impressions you do manage to gather are washed out still more once you board your train and are whisked away from the crowded emptiness of the place, the vague images of people in your head becoming more indistinct still, until they are as old photographs of blurred sepia, carried forever in your mind.
New train stations, on the other hand, are different; that is to say, the ones that have only been recently built, and have only had time to have a few impressions taken away. When you enter a new train station, far from being a lonely and faded place, it seems full of light and sound and people, and your very mood is lightened by being within it. When the man stops you to ask what time it is, you answer him and then inquire about his destination; when the woman spills her coffee on your shoes, you wave away her profuse apologies and engage her instead in a discussion of the best cafés in the area. The images you tuck away in your mind are bright and full of colour and wonder, and when you leave the station it is with an oddly lingering reluctance to return to the reality of life.
I spend much of my time in train stations, or at least I did some time ago, and I have learned to tell which stations are which sort even before my train pulls into them. There are several distinct tells: the tone in which the station’s name is announced, the demeanour of the other passengers, their reactions on hearing the place’s name, and the general atmosphere of the land outside the window. This last does not apply on rainy days, when any public place one enters has a sort of wondrous gloom to it, a melancholy of contentment that brings freshness even to the oldest of train stations. There is no explaining this feeling which seems contradictory to one who has not experienced it; but I was speaking of train stations, and one in particular which I doubt will ever fade in my memory.
When I disembarked from my train in this particular station, it was nearing midnight—half-past eleven, to be precise. It was one of the older stations, and the name was in large white iron letters on the wall, but I do not remember what it was. The letters were only white because of the paint, which was beginning to peel and chip, a latticework of cracks showing rusted metal between the flaking dirty whiteness that had a strange beauty to it, as indefinable as that lonely element of stations. And this was one such station, the feeling emphasized by the pinpoints of lamplight in its darkness and the few people still milling about.
I had just come to England from somewhere in Scotland, I believe, possibly from Edinburgh but potentially any other city there big enough to house a train station. I had but one suitcase, very light, and a much-worn wallet in the breast pocket of my overcoat, which I believe was brown; it still hangs in the very back of my closet. I had neglected to bring an umbrella, forgetting that most places in England are rainy most of the time, but I hadn’t ever purchased one and certainly didn’t intend to now, what with the sudden need to save money. I had up until then been living in a hotel, which was paid for nicely by my job and was far less expensive than the rent on the apartment I had previously lived in. I would have continued my sparse existence there indefinitely had it not been for the new management, whose preposterous production standards I had been unable to meet. So I had taken my few possessions and come to this small town, which I do not recall the name of, to seek—not my fortune, precisely, but merely some fortune, preferably of a good nature, because I had been lacking in this area until then. I intended to start anew, in a new position, possibly journalism, because I have always had a fondness for facts.
It was, unsurprisingly, raining when I emerged from the train station, and the darkness of near-midnight was compounded by the darkness that comes with all rain. There were not many people about because of the late hour, and most of the nearby businesses were closed, but there was an inviting sort of diner across the street with a pleasant glow to its lights.
