The One, The Train and Hungover.

So I recently wrote this spoken word piece - just to sort of practice my writing in what I'd describe as my 'natural' voice. Or at least my attempt at it.



 So here it is in written form just in case, I dunno, you wanna closer look.

-So I got on the train. Hungover from two days of cheap Aldi red wine and pints of Tennents. I had stumbled into Glasgow Central after half an hour in the Wetherspoons across the street trying not to be sick into my pint of john smiths, buying it thinking it would be best to sooth my sore head - it tasted of bitter chemical and smelt vaguely like cleaning product. Like how I would imagine sanitiser, the kind behind bars in unlabled sprayers, to taste if you thickened it with cornflour. We had an intense political debate in the surprisingly busy pub but I couldn't pointfully express myself fearing I would vomit all over my friends. I didn't want to make a scene or put any of the other customers off their sunday roast. Glasgow Central was busy as well, filled with people, the sound reverberates against the glass roof. The announcer for each arriving and departing train in the robotic pre-recorded bored tone, the chatter of conversation, the noise of people. I seen a queue stretching from some poor conductor at one of the far left gates all the way to the main entrance. I suppose a train must've been canceled and this poor bastard had to deal with it. I tried to focus on the departure board. The bright orange digital writing that flickers and changes, just as you think you've seen a stop or line that you recognise, the bastard thing disappears. My headache pulsed my eyesight and everything became an intense blur.

I had to close my eyes and rub my temples - briefly worried I would pass out and die. Hangovers seem to fuzz the line that you draw in your mind about mortality or frailty - that headache may become a stroke, that pain in your stumach is an ulcer, that cold shiver is your nervous system giving out, the quickened heart beat and anxiety will turn into a heart attack. 

The paranoia builds up. A group of teenagers are laughing and immediately I presume they're laughing at me. Not that I can do anything about that, I won't even look at them to see if they really are, cause frankly - I don't want any trouble. I recover in a sudden wave. Not completely. Not in some miracle - but enough to look at the departure board again. I can't see West Calder or anywhere I recognise as close by. 

The sunday service is something new - it stops at every shitty estate and town between Glasgow and Edinburgh - but comes only every two hours. On the one hand it's pretty good because it means I don't have to spend another night on my mates couch until monday morning. Not that I had much of a pressing reason to go back home anyway, other than the desire to not spend more money on food and another night drinking heavily as is usual with my group of friends. I panic that I had misread the national rail website or the train had been cancelled. I had already bought my ticket and I hate to see money wasted - especially my own.

Eventually the Edinburgh Waverly comes up at platform 6 and I breathe a sigh of relief passing through the gates with no hassle.

I began to feel better as I settled on the train.

There was an episode of the X-Files where they had this guy that'd been experimented his brain or something on and they had to drive the car really fast to relieve the pressure in his head. Course his brain explodes at the end. Well thats how I feel when I'm hungover - as long as I keep moving I seem to be ok. trains have a kind of speed and rhythm that calms. I doubt my head will explode but then again, anything can happen.

I don't recognise the train interior. not that I'm an expert on trains or anything but I travel enough on this line to see that this isn't the usual carriages. The seats are plush and tall so you cant mistakenly make eye contact with someone in your line of sight 5 metres away ensueing in awkwardness if you make eye contact again.

So I worry that I've gotten on the wrong train or I misread something, but I sit down anyway and decide to wait until the announcer comes on to tell me this is the right train or not. 

It's fairly busy filled with chatter of every accent that central scotland can give. I hear Fauldhouse mentioned, so I kinda relax - but then. I worry that maybe they've got the wrong train. Maybe we've all got it wrong.

Then she comes in.

See I have this Rom-Com-esque fantasy where I sit on a busy train and then, she, the one, sits next to me. We engage conversation, fall in love, get together, marry, have kids and live the rest of our lives in joy, wealth and happiness. I'd be on top form, woo her with my wit and she'd find me immediately endearing. Tell her I'm a struggling writer artist thing, all my favourite writers and she'd tell me hers. We'd be able to tell the story of how we met at dinner parties drinking red wine and sickening every one of our friends with our puppy love bullshit.

Of course I'm a booze sweat mess. Eye's are bloodshot, and near visibly shaking. Thanks to sleeping in a smoke filled room my throat is a harsh croak.

she comes in struggling with a giant 2 wheeled suitcase and sits across the aisle from me. The suitcase sorta fits in the space between the seat and the back of the chair in front and she clambers over it to the window seat.

Slightly tanned, black hair in a short of bob cut thing. She has a pair of thick rimmed hipster glasses that dont seem to scream try hard - funny how less you judge someone if you find them attractive. she almost had a delicate face or something I dunno. I suppose kinda exotic. She looked like she'd be the lead singer in an indie electropop band from Paris or something.

I'm not exactly staring at her btw, I just took this in the cursory glance I gave her when she came in as I was wondering if I should ask if she needs a hand with her bag.

Anyway, by this point my heart is racing cause I think - Great this is it, my mad rom com fantasy thing has come true. Their she is, here it is. It's simple. All I need to do is say hello and ask her where shes from or something.

Turns out I don't have to. She turns to me and says 

"Excuse me is this the train to Edinburgh?" in a sort of spanish accented way.

I panic. Because I don't truly know for sure. and I don't want to lie to the girl. know what I mean? I mean if I say yes and then it turns out this train is for fucking Dundee or something then I'd feel like a true fanny. and well blow any chance of romance right out the window. I mean, who wants a partner that doesn't even know what train he's on?

So what do I say?

"Uhh Well, I hope so."

Fuck. Who the fuck says that? "Well, I hope so?". I fucking hope so? I must've sounded like a twat - hardly boyfriend material. ugh why man. why!?

So again I panic about what I just said. I've fumbled and I try to recover.

"Going to Waverly yeah?"

She nods and smiles and says yeah.

I say "yeah" and nodding back.

worst thing is we hold eye contact for a second or half longer than comfortable. That smile though. It was the smile that you'd give a kitten that couldn't get out a fucking carboard box. A puppy that'd fallen off the couch. A pitying smile. the smile you give an idiot. It broke my heart. My idiot heart.

"Thanks" she said. Then looked away out the window.

Fuck sake. I'd ruined it. Here life had thrown me an opportunity and what do I do? Piss it up the wall in epic proportions.

The announcer finally comes on 

"This train is for Edinburgh waverly blah blah blah" so at least she wouldn't need to ask some other less clueless person on the train.

I sat and thought about maybe I could ask where shes from? what shes doing in scotland? why is she travelling to Edinburgh? Is she in an Electropop indie band?

Of course I didn't. I sat staring out the window and put my earphones in. I didn't put any music on for some reason. I think I was hoping she'd ask me something else. But thats typical of me - always waiting for someone else to make the first move.

She takes out her phone and starts talking to someone in her mother tongue. Being as uncultered as I am I couldn't work out which language she was speaking but she was probably just telling her friend about the useless smelly Scottish guy across from her and how she wishes she'd one day get on the train next to a hot, confident guy that didn't have a drink problem.

40 or so minutes go by and theres my stop - West Calder. I get up, my hangover has hidden for a while - or at least it feels like it. I take one last glance at what could've been - but she's staring out the window probably wondering why the station house is now a chinese restaraunt and takeaway. I get out into the spitting rain and walk home.