Nik lives in Essex, UK and works in London as the editor of MacUser magazine. The posts and comments on this site do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions of values of his employers.
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The signals at Stratford break, as they seem to do every week or two, and they delay all the trains to Essex. I catch the 1918 and it arrives at Chelmsford 57 minutes late. They pay you compensation if you’re delayed an hour or more. They don’t think about the fact you’ve spent an hour and three quarters sitting next to a kid that smelt of airline dinners, or that he spent the last hour and a half dropping his head onto your shoulder every four minutes as he drifted off to sleep and his neck gave way. They don’t consider that when the train does not move the air is so still you could suffocate.
I arrive home hot and late. I must be out the door again by six tomorrow. Out of bed by five. The evening is already short, so I put on the hob to heat water for eggs, putting just enough into the bottom of my favourite pan, the pan my dad gave me before he moved to France, to warm the poaching cups just enough.
The phone rings. It is my dad. We talk and the water in the pan boils away. The heavy plastic poaching cups bubble and boil and melt all over the inside of the pan. It is beyond repair.
And so I am feeling sorry for myself as I sit down and cuddle the cat. He makes me feel better. The James Bond film is interrupted for the news and I see stories of missing children, their parents pleading for their safe return; the historic streets of Prague drowned under the torrent of the broken Vltava, while 250,000 people pack their bags and run for their lives; IBM laying off 15,600 workers.
Suddenly my irritation feels self indulgent. I return to the kitchen and scramble my eggs instead.
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