Creative writing submission from the Rest Less community – submit your entry here.
In which Dawson catches a train, and has a slight accident
It was the following Thursday morning, 7.30am, and it was raining, although that was a rather inadequate description for the deluge of water that had been assaulting Stallford for the past hour. Dawson was standing on Stafford Railway Station waiting for a train that had been due to arrive six minutes ago, but which had been held up, a lugubrious, slightly muffled voice over the antediluvian Tannoy had informed them, by a renegade leaf or two brought crashing on to the line by the rain. Dawson had always previously imagined that leaf fall was something that happened in the autumn, not in late January, but doubtless, Southern Railway knew better.
Eventually, the train arrived. It was thirteen minutes late, and it was full. Or at least the coach that drew to a halt opposite Dawson was full, and he was faced with an apparently impenetrable wall of backs when the door nearest to him opened. However, he was nothing if not game and had two important appointments to keep in London, so he did not fancy waiting a further forty-five minutes for the next train.
By dint of a good deal of undignified pushing and shoving, and even more cursing, not all from his own mouth, he eventually managed to gain a toe-hold on the train, and the hour-long journey thereafter into the capital was made with his buttocks flattened by the door. He prayed the door would not fly open of its own accord, and mercifully it didn’t.
Dawson knew the geography of central London less well than might have been presupposed from his years of living in Ealing. When he arrived at Victoria Station and was spewed forth onto the main concourse at the same time as about a thousand others, he stopped and stood irresolutely for a moment while he tried to get his bearings. This immediately endeared him to absolutely nobody at all. Commuters travelling by rail into London require at least two attributes: one is the ability to remain silent at all times under often intense provocation such as small children and mobile telephones (although a small discreet tut-tutting may be allowed on occasion); and the other is the art of giving the impression of knowing exactly where one is going at all times, even if one doesn’t. Put simply, this means that no one is permitted to stop suddenly at a London railway terminus.
Dawson stopped suddenly just beyond the end of the platform and within five or six seconds, the following events had occurred as a direct result of this flagrant breach of the rules.
First, an intensely serious young lady wearing horn-rimmed spectacles with her hair in an unfashionable bun, who was striding purposefully along behind Dawson at a distance of approximately one millimetre whilst conducting an important phone conversation with the staff at Costa Coffee, collided with him. Since she had been travelling slightly faster than an Olympic thirty-kilometre-walk gold medallist, this collision propelled Dawson solidly forward. Off-balance, he thrust out a hand to stop himself falling, and caught hold of the sleeve of another champion six-kilometres-per-hour walker (male).
Without so much as a sideways glance or a break in step, the subject of Dawson’s involuntary assault deftly swung the metal briefcase he was carrying in his other hand in a wide parabola and at ever-increasing speed until it struck Dawson firmly on the side of the head. The speed and force of the blow had all the sixteen stone weight of the gentleman in question behind it, so Dawson only caught the first word or two of the “Bloody beggars! Out of my way, you scum!” that was directed his way before unconsciousness overtook him.
As he fell, he collided with a passing porter who happened to be driving a motorised, articulated luggage trolley. The porter fell off and his vehicle, now unnavigated, motored away in a haphazard fashion in the general direction of a concourse Burger Bar. By now this flurry of activity had caught the attention of everyone within a fifty-foot radius of Dawson’s prone form. Everyone, that is, except the manager of the Burger Bar, who had his back turned to the world and who was fervently engaged in grilling a rack of burgers. About 100 interested onlookers remained totally silent as the runaway luggage trolley trundled on to its doom.
When the final, awful collision came, it was spectacularly cataclysmic. The serving counter of the Burger Bar, being of modern construction, was consequently unable to offer more than token resistance to half a ton of trolley with attendant luggage, and the whole bar collapsed inwardly with a loud thwump as cases and boxes and, shortly after, burgers, tomato ketchup, various other delicious fillings and the bar manager flew in all directions. The trolley overturned slowly and expired amidst the debris.
Dawson, meanwhile, was sleeping peacefully with a large bump, expanding by the second, on the side of his head. For a while he was completely ignored, the much greater devastation of the Burger Bar understandably gaining the lion’s share of attention from the crowd. Not that the crowd, as a whole, seemed to be especially interested in doing anything to help.
As the seconds ticked past, there was a good deal of looking at watches and a general muttering about being late for various meetings that had suddenly assumed increasing importance; and gradually the throng dispersed. It was not, however, long before diverse representatives of the emergency services began to appear on the scene. Once again, however, the remains of the Burger Bar and its erstwhile manager were the focus of their attention.
Dawson remained lying where he was for quite a while until a young police constable, hurrying sedately across the concourse, almost tripped over him.
Being reasonably intelligent, he didn’t immediately assume that Dawson was a homeless person choosing to sleep in the wrong place at the wrong time, and so stopped for a closer look. A delicate prod with a size twelve boot elicited no response from the recumbent Dawson, and an even closer look revealed the truth to the officer, that Dawson was in fact in need of some assistance.
A quick call across to the smouldering remains of the Burger Bar brought a paramedic running and Dawson was bundled onto a stretcher and packed away in the back of an ambulance, together with the manager of the Burger Bar. The latter, although conscious, had a leg broken in two places and an alarming amount of what appeared at first glance to be blood on his face, but which turned out on further inspection to be ketchup. The ambulance rolled gently off towards St Thomas’ Hospital and left the police in charge of the accident scene.
A Very Important Teapot can be purchased on Amazon.
Are you feeling creative? We are proud to have a hugely talented community on Rest Less, which is why we’re so excited to open up a section of the site dedicated to showcasing the wonderful and diverse writing of our members. If you have a piece of creative writing that you’d like to share with the Rest Less community – you can do so here.