Lost in Transience...

There are times in life where you think you're wasting your mortal coil, watching the very seconds of your life tick away... but ever so inhumanly slow....

A second in everyday life is nothing much, your brain far to removed and busy to worry about a mere second... what can you do?.. not much ... but being transient they can last a lifetime, as anyone can find out.

So what events lead to this? what became my second escape from reality... well...

Sunday night, things have changed since I last stayed out so late on a school night and I found myself eagerly flapping my arms at what I eventually found out was the last bus hoping it may stop.

But as I well found out and have seen before, some bus drivers have heart, where as late night bus drivers have none... I was a mere ten foot away when he decided my future state of limbo.

So now what? stood at a bus stop, some fellow travelers also stuck with the same dilemma... walk, taxi, wait? each ran through my mind... some fellow waiters actually clubbed together for a taxi to longshite, which would have still meant I'd have been far from my destination of sulmberland, but wait a small light in the darkness popped into my head...

On my swift journey to the bus I was accompanied by recently acquired friend.... a master of the transience, that after a brief walk, now stood before me once more...

Through our walk from the pop porn, we had enjoyed earlier, with a larger group of friends and the delicate process of chat, I'd find out that he came from the same hick town as myself, another born and bred Blackburn person, a few years difference but his thoughts being similar to mine about the place, ie it's dire, and clicky.... so after a long talk,our journeys began taking a similar route back to our methods to return from hence we came....

He told me that he had a wait on for the train in the morning, but was fine that had some tunes to get him through, so I bid farewell and engaged in my lesser hobby of bus flagging (where you stand slightly drunk flapping your arms as soon as you see the large mass move towards you and hoping it is a bus).

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So here we were again in each others company and now how do you properly waste five hours? and I say waste, I had no ipod, no jotter book, just 3 cameras... and both of us being too sober to just fall into a stupor....

For a while we talked and walked, watching the endless repetition of 2 hollywood movies, trying to catch the bullet sounds and pretend to be shot dead (every 8mins, which we worked out and did last the full course of 5 hours). These where churned out by the 3 dvd vending machines (there are no food vending machines or bins in the station, so you may die of starvation and dehydration, but you'll be entertained to the end ). Endlessly watching the staff clearing up the detritus of the previous day and observing others at least 4,who where stuck in this limbo... but where they here by choice or such as ourselves, circumstance?

My companion smoked, so at least we got to go outside, quick chat, a laugh and I did inform him there was a 24 hour shop just up the road, so that's were we headed, not cold enough to come out with the line... I'm going outside, I maybe some time!.

So having previously already been in the establishment I went straight for some light entertainment, which once I left the shop consisted of the magazine Esquire, The lovely Rachael Weisz, seductively placed on the cover and it's seedier distant cousin Nuts all about good bums!, a drink and a packet of Crisps.

Back at our free hotel, in the warmest seating, I began to peruse my magazines, I had already read many leaflets, so now with my back to the clock, with it's slow ticking seconds I opened the magazines eagerly hoping it would kill a little time and fill my brain with knowledge.

The articles mentioned how it's bad to know too much, Racheal being the woman most men would marry in a survey, glamour girls boobs,and bums, new unaffordable sports cars, football yuck, all managed to kill some time... but as it lasts forever not much time actually passed.

It did remind me of a time 11 years ago, where I first fell into this transient hole, on a dance floor in Ibiza waiting for a foam party. It was loud, full to the rafters and again I was under the drunken illusion and as I danced my night away quite energetically till the point of collapse, I thought time was passing at the same speed, but no, I ended up sitting down till just after 6am, waiting for the foam. I since found out my mate got lucky by the sea during this time, with a quite attractive girl, one I actually ate coleslaw for (sad face, as wish I'd been lucky, I think I'm the only person never to have been lucky in ibiza).. but in the end the foam was well worth the wait..... but back to now 11 years later.

So being only armed with 3 cameras, I proceeded to take pictures of my new companions and then myself larking around.

The girl in the first picture moved about the station during the five hours, partly from the staff having to clean, but also I think for warmth. She posed an interesting quandary, she looked eastern european and the contents of her blue plastic bag seemed a little random, were these her only possessions?. The was an air of sorrow that seemed to be with her, and I was curious about her, she must have viewed me and my companion as safe and she didn't stink....

The rest that lay in various states around the station consisted of:

a group of young lads with a suitcase each, who looked like they may have been kicked out of their hotel, they did offer for us to join them and listen to crappy tinny tunes coming from a phone, but we gladly declined the offer.

two other people managing to sleep on the chairs near us...

A couple of ladies of the night, maybe a judge-mental thought on my part, but I guess that they were for three reasons.

1. I knew that just behind the station is a well known area for touting for business.

2. I had seen an interesting documentary in the past all about the area and the station at night. 3. Who else would have dress sense such as that?

One stayed for a while, she must have been on a break... or full up.

A couple of scallies came through, asking to borrow a pound, asking everyone in turn, wether they slept or wide awake. They sloped by not stopping even if anyone had a offered them a pound, but they did kindly tell the girl next to us that she "had a nipple on her head", I just thought they'd never seen a beret before. This made the girl awake, then move on to another place in the station.

By now time had speeded up slightly, as my attention had been taken elsewhere, distracted by people and actually trying to learn how my digital camera works. So at last 4.13am was reborn, along with the purchase of my cheap ticket home.

More people now where beginning to file into the station, the boards lighting up with trains to the north and the south, and there was mine the 5.05am train to the big smoke.

So just before I got on my train, I bid my friend goodbye as he went to Victoria to await his 6am train, cursed Costa Coffee for not opening early enough, from there on a 10min trip and a 15min walk... and the view of sumberland would be in my sight....

So do my fellow transients still roam the cold halls of Picadilly now?, or where they just passing through like myself.