I took this picture of a train on a platform at Winchester Station in the UK. I was waiting for the 9 am train to take me from my sister’s house to Gatwick Airport when this express train shot past. They announced that the train approaching the station would not stop, they said something about staying behind the yellow line. They did not say it would fly past so fast that it would blow up the skirt of the woman next to me and pile discarded coffee cups against the brick walls.
That’s incredibly dangerous, I thought as the woman patted down her skirt, it would be so easy to be killed by that train.
The train to Gatwick arrived next, on time and quite full. I wedged my carry-on bag above my seat and settled in. We chugged on stopping at other stations, picking up more passengers, letting some off.
About halfway there we sat for an extra-long time. An announcement chirped in, polite and crisp, over the speakers.
“There has been an incident on the lines. We will be delayed momentarily. We will update you when we have more information.”
I’m American, born and raised, so I’m not familiar with the subtleties of English mannerisms. I’d recently been in Scotland to attend a writing retreat and learned about one of those idiosyncrasies.
The English woman who ran the retreat center made an announcement at breakfast on our third morning.
“Excuse me,” she said in her soft, clipped accent, “I must let you know we’ve had a terrible tragedy.”
The breakfast table chatter fell silent.
Oh no! Did someone die? The man who was our guest reader last night left an hour ago. The roads are icy. Did he crash?
“I’m so sorry to have to tell you this. It really is awful,” she went on.
Did he have a heart attack? Is he dead? My god, woman, tell us what happened!
“The fireplace in the Hobbit Hut is no longer working so we won’t be able to use it for classes or meetings today.”
I gasped. It’s…wait, what?
Schedules shifted, new rooms opened, and we went on with breakfast.
I leaned across the old oak table and addressed Martin, the Englishman across from me.
“Is that an English thing?” I asked.
“What are you referring to?”
“That announcement. She sounded so dire, so distraught, I thought for sure someone had died. I was relieved it was only the fireplace. I mean, jeez, I thought the guest reader had crashed into a ditch.”
“Oh, yes, that’s very English. If it’s a minor incident it’s relayed as a tragedy, the worst thing that could possibly happen. If it’s an actual tragedy, we’ll just straight up say it in as few words as possible.”
On board the train headed to Gatwick the intercom clicked to life stilling the growing murmur of restless passengers.
“Good morning, there has been a fatality on the line ahead of us. We will update you on our status as soon as we are able.”
Oh no! That’s horrible! A hush fell over the entire car. A corporate moment of silence for the soul whose life ended that morning.
Wait, a brief sentence, straight to the point. This is serious. This train isn’t going anywhere.
I pulled out my phone, opened Uber, and requested a car. The seats around me were 90% full. I could see through the doors that both the car in front of me and the one behind were just as packed with people.
I grabbed my bags and got off the train. My gut and my recently acquired knowledge of English mannerisms told me that all those people, hundreds, and hundreds, would disembark in a few minutes, all looking for a new way to get to where they were going. Sure enough, as I greeted my driver and he set my bag in the trunk of his car my phone lit up with a notification. My train, and all others on that track, were canceled until further notice.
I settled into the back seat grateful I’d followed my instinct and abandoned the despondent train and I remembered the train that blasted past Winchester Station earlier that morning. The solidity and speed roared down the tracks with terrifying permanence and power. Was that THE train? Was I tuned into some cosmic hotline warning me of what was coming? Did the train carry the stench of impending death and I caught the scent as it blasted past stinging my nostrils with toxic inescapable doom? A train driven by death haunting us in the misty English morning.
In the picture, the train is a blur, there and gone at the same moment. A ghost of steel hurtling to its date with destiny.
Was it the train? I’ll never know for certain, but my soul shivers when I look at the picture.
I’m sad about the fatality. The unknown person whose life ended on that day, on that track while the rest of us were on our way somewhere. Paths crossed, some were inconvenienced, one was dead. Many lives shifted; one came undone.
I told an English friend about this. She made a tsk-tsk sound.
“That happens more and more now. People can’t get ahold of guns so…trains.”
“You mean someone did it on purpose? Suicide by train?”
“Yes, it’s unfortunate.”
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