to be of sound mind

I’d been home for an audition in Belfast city where the girls are so pretty, and flew back into Stansted airport at about 9pm.  I jumped on a train “to Liverpool Street, calling at Bishop’s Stortford, Tottenham Hale and Liverpool Street”, and settled into my seat.

I then became aware that I was being watched.

I was in fact the only person in the carriage.

Apart from my stalker.

A middle-aged overweight man in a beige raincoat with a hat and beady eyes.

An attacker.

A murderer…most probably!

He was sitting at the table across the aisle from me, preying on me.  The fact that I had sat down after him did not occur to me until quite some time later.

So I sat there trying to avoid his gaze and his general communicative gestures.  I looked out the window where the world was dark with night and all I could see was his reflection in my face.  I tried shutting my eyes feigning sleep, praying all the while that he would leave at Bishop’s Stortford…but he did not.

For those of you who do not know there is a substantial amount of time between Bishop’s Stortford and Tottenham Hale, just enough time for those possessing a heightened sense of imagination to go way overboard in their thoughts.

Whilst I sat there in silence avoiding my murderer I became completely and utterly convinced that my last moments were to be on this train.

It was then the brainwave hit.

If I could just get a photo of him then he would be identified in my court case!

So, casually, I pulled out my phone…not a sound apart from the noise of the train on the tracks.

No verbal contact until…click…

And he’s waving at me.

So I look at him and engage my murderer in conversation…

“What…are…you…doing?!” I snap.

“Oh pardon me” he says jovially, with a toothy charming grin, “I thought you were taking a photo!”

“What?”

I am now completely aware that I have just been caught alone in a train taking a photo of a man I do not know.  I become fully aware of the insanity of my actions.

“I was trying to send a text!” I state, blushing.  “You see there was no reception, and I was trying to send it…and…” I teeter off, this story does not wash when spoken out loud.

I sit back aware that I have now engaged in open contact with a complete stranger, the man who will later kill me, but…at least I have a photo!

He of course did not kill me.  I write this about four years after the event.  And two days after being released into the real world again.

Lessons learnt:

Never try and take a photo of a stranger unless you want to engage in conversation with them.

Not all men in raincoats who travel by train are bad men.