As I walked down the street I noticed lots of things that I normally would disassociate myself with of a morn. My heightened sense of awareness, no doubt being the responsibility of my lack of sleep, added to this the very real hangover that was evident at this specific moment in time.

A man walks with a dog, or rather tries to affect walking onto a puppy. He drags the scrawny looking animal along the pavement, the lead taut, yet there is the faintest hint of give as the puppy tries in vain to stop his progression. At this precise point I wonder to the adage of…man’s best friend. What is the little mutt actually thinking of his (so-called) dominant partner right now?

- I wish he’d fucking leave me alone.

Springs to mind.

- Why the fuck did I have to pick this one for?

Is another.

- I’m gonna tell my fucking mother on you.

Flashes into view.

The guy stands totally perplexed as to why his dog will not play the game. He stops and pauses, (the lead still as tight as ever,) as he looks at the shaking bundle of fluff. You can see it in his eyes (the man), he is already losing patience with the dog. This could well be the start to the demise of their relationship. The guy could always take the other option available to him. Corporal punishment…to beat some fucking sense into the mutt. Let him know who is his lord and master, and all that shit. Perhaps this is what the dog fears, or even expects. Perhaps his extra canine senses detect in advance the cruelty that may ensue. I know one thing. His late mother wouldn’t be too happy at this juncture, neither, at her offsprings attempts at dog-ship. Nor, the mantle of the new owner to the hallowed club of dog-ownership. The fickle mismanagement of both parties.

As I walk oblivious to my path, my heel slips on contact with the ground. I look for the reason and find it instantly. Dog shit. On a personal note I don’t really like dogs, but this feeling is enhanced ten-fold by the causal effect of them shitting on this very pavement, the very same one that I have decided to travel upon. I look at the guy and his little puppy. I hope he kicks ten lumps of shit out of the dirty little bastard.

I sit on a step and search for an implement with which to get the shit off the bottom of my trainer, its freshly laid consistency deposited within the neat grooves of my nearly new Airwalk trainer. I spy a dead match, long since extinct, yet with a new usage in the after-life. I begin my approach, yet the smell is overpowering. I retch and almost give in to the heaving action, but I manage to hold myself in check. I turn down-wind as to stop any reference to what can only be described as one of the foulest smelling shits on earth. My own shit appears to be heaven-scented as opposed to this vile concoction. People watch as they pass me by. They cringe at my horror, I do not see them directly, I only occasion their shadows passing by my stocking foot, the threadbare sock, a dead give away to my near poverty. I dig, turn, gouge, then empty the resulting crap onto the steps to the side of me. I bang the heel of my trainer onto the cold concrete. I see a day old puddle (struggling to hold onto existence,) to my left. I wash the underside of my trainer into its murky configuration. I stop the sky appearing on the street, its clouds lost in the melee of silted undercurrent. I bang once more. It will do. I continue my journey only too aware of my course, I must have stared at the pavement for a quarter of a mile, before I dared raise my head again.

The weather today is of a strange consistency, one minute the sun burns harshly into my balding forehead, then in the split second following, a breeze actuates its coolness into view, thus causing goose-pimples to rise from the sanctuary that they usually reside in, wherever that may be. I shudder at the prospect of getting a cold from the ever-changing conditions.

I stop at a set of traffic lights, the need to cross the road safely pre-empting my decision. I look at the red man, then at the flow of traffic. I see a cyclist fast approaching, suddenly the lights change and he is forced to stop abruptly. I look at the sweat on his face, I see years of outdoor activity etched into his features. He has probably ridden that very same bike, on these very same streets for the major part of his life. He mops his brow in anticipation of the lights going to green. I look back at the red man, yet he has disappeared, only to be replaced by the green man, his background music monotonously bleating out its tune. I walk across the road catching in the corner of my eye the strenuous beginnings of the man on a bike, obviously his gear ratio is stuck in some ridiculously low gear. The front wheel waivers as he exerts his manual power system. He slowly, ever so slowly gains speed as the drivers try to give him a wide berth. In the next instance he veers to the right…no hand signal, no indication that he is going to turn. To be fair to the van driver he did manage to avoid full contact, but only by the severity of his swerve, alas he did clip the front wheel of the bike. This was enough to send the man flying over the handlebars, both the bike and he somersaulting to a standstill in the middle of rush hour traffic, positioned almost centrally betwixt traffic lights. With a certain amount of skill and judgement all the proceeding vehicles diverge around the stricken figure. I lean on the railings to watch this debacle. I feel somewhat distanced from this calamity, partially because of my hangover, and partially because it is an obvious comic scene plucked straight out of an Eric Sykes epic. Others stop and watch. They like me. They look on in awe of reality, unable to fathom out any relationship to this fallen figure. I can hear his whimpers, yet any clarity now drowned out by the volume of traffic passing by.

Without noticing which direction he came from, another man appears at the side of the cyclist. He disentangles the man and bike from their almost sculptural combination, swiftly lifting him to his feet and dragging him to the relative safety of the pavement. I hear people clapping and cheering as I move off from my stationery stance. Upwards and onwards.

I take a left into the street leading up to the train station and walk into a domestic. She is half way to the floor, he stands as her oppressor, her controlling force. She is crying. Her body posture indicates her fear of him, though her mouth bellows a tirade of insults and innuendo that belittles the guy in public.

- You think you’re such a big man!

She points out this, not to him, but to anyone else who cares to listen. I am the only other person on the street. As I approach he lurches forward in mock attack, she responds by tripping back-wards landing squat on her arse. Her legs akimbo, one high-heeled flip-flop discarded, her white knickers instantly soiled.

- Get up you stupid bitch!

He is half-cocked, bent at forty-five degrees shouting into her face. She refuses to look at him. She wipes away the mixture of snot and tears into the back of her hand causing a simultaneous light and dark stripe to appear. One being the result of depositing, the other being a withdrawal. The deposit; mascara. The withdrawal; duo-tan.

- Look what you made me do now…you selfish pig!

I pass by them, trying my utmost to look the other way.

- What are you looking at!

Now I might have expected him to say this but no. I look at her, I look at her knickers in full view, I wonder if I would fancy her were she in a different setting and under different circumstances, I look at him. He shrugs. I walk on. As I do I can hear her calling after me…

- Wanker! You’re just like the fucking rest of them. All men are bastards!

I hear a dull thud as I enter the train station. I think I have heard it before, though I decline to look back. I buy my one way ticket. A ticket to back in time. I sit on the hard wooden bench at the top of the stairs and wonder as to why I haven’t moved to the City yet. I think it is an accumulation of things. All of which constitute no actual reason, or proof, or even begin to deal with why, but it comes to bear that I am still stuck in the sticks.

I look at a pretend Policeman. He comes out of a side door eating an ice cream, looking like a rotund blow up figure. He walks with an air-filled capacity too. Full of shit and wind. He looks much younger than I. He looks stupid, not in the way of his attire, or any resemblance to fashion ineptitude. He really looks as if he is mentally deficient. Dull, in other words. And I know lots of dull people.

I get up and walk away from him, for he is beginning to annoy me profoundly. I stand by the glass outside the buffet room on Queen Street station. I peer in. There is the usual assemblage of hapless people within. Some sit here to raise their level of standing, this being achieved by the mere fact they have bought something from the counter, for the prices within here are at extortionist levels, to say the least. Others pretend. They buy their Cokes outside, then smuggle them into the warm environment. Then you have the oddities, which always find their way into my viewfinder. I look at one such figure now. He has several plastic bags beside him. He himself has on a suit jacket; ill matching trousers; topped off with dirty white Hi-Tec trainers. His hair has that wayward look that harkens back to the forties, the majority of which is one length and askew, at the nape of the neck the radical nature of the shaving cries of imposed rule, maybe institutional. He meticulously takes out his acquisitions…second-hand books. He takes them out and wipes each one individually. You can see the pleasure spreading across his middle-aged mug. He looks at the covers, front and back, then flicks through the pages as if searching for pictures. I wonder if he can read, or if this has been some sort of kleptomaniac shopping spree.

- Bing-bong.

The pre-announcement entertainment echoes in my mind.

- The next train to Hell will arrive on Platform1.

I await my destiny…

I sit on the train hoping to drift into some melancholic realm that numbs my being. I close me eyes and see myself as I am. It is disgusting to see this reality. I embark on a personal crisis, but now is not the time to enter into it. I open my eyes to see two young boys, I say this only realising that compared to me they are boyish, yet they are more likely to be about twenty, or maybe even twenty-one. I don’t really give a shit, but for the premise of the story it needs to be said. One faces me. I look at him through my hand, it being strategically placed as to presuppose sleep, though the truth of the matter is that I spy on their youthful arrogance.

- I’m gonna tell ‘im I lost my wallet.

- No…don’t do tha’.

- It’ll be o’right.

- It’s your neck.

The youth facing me slams a clenched fist into the side of the train, obviously it is annoying him the fact that no one is taking a blind bit of notice of his adolescence. I remember it well. Most people look the other way, others pretend that the noise they had just heard had never happened. Denial is a great restraint. He licks his lips as he notices the guard approaching down the trundling carriage. His friend confidently holds his return ticket in his dirty hand; safe in the knowledge that he at least will get off at the stop he intends to go to. The fare-dodger switches his Nike baseball cap back-to-front, then vice versa. He shuffles in his seat as he realises that he is next in line for the question.

- Tickets please.

The guard looks at the youth.

- Mmm…I came down this morning…and…um…when I got…to…um…Queens Street…um…just outside, I…um…realised I’d left my wallet on the…um…train.

- What train did you come down on?

- Wha’ time woz it now?

His peer looks at his watch as if trying to recreate the exact time.

- ‘Bout arf ten.

The guard looks at one, then the other.

- Where are you going to?

- Caerphilly.

I know he knows they are lying. They it know too.

- Ok.

He says eventually. As he walks away the idiot still doesn’t know that he has won and should keep quiet.

- D’you want my name and address?

- No…you’re all right.

- Sure?

The guard nods. The two lads snigger to each other as the triumphant overtones set in.

- We can have a pint now son.

- Aye.

Time for another bit of bravado as the side of the train gets another belt with such a velocity that I feel the vibration several seats down the train. Nobody says anything. I call them pricks under my breath. I have never been one for confrontation. But some are.

- Why don’t you two grow up?

Both boys turn in unison to face their accuser. She is a middle-aged woman oblivious to the perils of youthful tendencies.

- Wha’s tha’ marra wi’ you mun?

- What?

She exclaims, readily doubling their loathing of her. Who is she to question their actions? Cheeky cunt!

- Who are you ‘en? Is it your train? No. I fink nohr.

- Mind your own fuckin’ biznuz!

The quieter one chirps in, his confidence bolstered by the others' attitude.

- It’s nufin to do wi’ you.

The train jolts, as the driver applies the brakes. Both the boys stand and lean menacingly over the woman, who is now rather concerned for her own safety. She is sidled up to the side of the glass hoping for a door to appear to accept her escape. They poke their fingers at her provoking a nervous mandatory response from the lady.

- If you were my boys I’d knock your heads together.

- Well we fuckin’ ent, an’ anyway d’you want to ‘av a go?

The train stops abruptly and they lurch forward. One stoops to see what station it is.

- C’mon it’s our stop.

- You are lucky…bitch…very lucky…if I ever see you again…

- C’mon mun!

They run off the train laughing aloud. On the way one of them kicks a pram just prior to jumping off. I honestly couldn’t say if it was deliberate, or not, but I choose to believe it was.