The most pungent
smell I have met in a long time comes on my train ride home one Tuesday
evening.
As I enter the carriage,
the other worldly waft smashes me between the nostrils with a vengeance.
I am frozen, not
knowing which direction to move, or where the source of the waft is settled.
The waft is the
kind that you can taste as it infiltrates your nose, your mouth, your hair,
your skin.
I look around and
finally my eyes catch up with my nose.
A thin, gaunt man,
sprawled out, with his bare feet, and long, filthy, blacker than black toenails,
resting proudly on the other seat.
I take a look
without making it known, and wonder where he has been.
Has he been living
underground with the rats and damp, with the mud and dirt, with the dark and cold?
The smell filters
through the long carriages and I can’t bear to be this close any longer.
I search the
carriage for somewhere else to go. But wherever i go, the waft follows.
The carriage train
is the type that has no doors at either end, so the waft now is encompassing
and also travelling....everywhere.
There is no escape,
as I contemplate making my exit from the train completely.
But, I find another
seat a little further down the carriage, where the waft is less commanding.
I feel sick and I
can’t concentrate, I feel guilty, and wonder how I could help him…
But instead, I do
my best to avoid him? I go the other way.
I put my blinkers
on and try to think of something else.
I think about my
life and my little worries and troubles.
But then they all
fall into perspective
And I am reminded
of how lucky I really am.
