The Pandora

2:05 pm.

He waited for the train sat on a red bench, envying the three children with a skateboard; they were playing noisily up and down the platform ramps which led to the main road.

A girl in jeans with a sparkly pink top covered in stars walked down onto the opposite platform, their eyes met and he wondered if she was one of them too?


2:07pm

And the train was due at 2:12pm.Then in just 10 minutes he would be there again.

The tension made him thirsty and he wished he had stopped at the shops and bought a bottle of water.

He looked at the girl again, but she was on her mobile phone. The skateboarders had moved to the far end of the platform and were now being quiet.

How many of them are there? He thought and how long has this been going on?


2:10pm

Almost time. The platform was filling up, but no one looked quite the way the other boy had. No one held his gaze and stared back, and no one he could see here, had been in that battle yesterday.

Yesterday?

Was it really only 24 hours since it all began?


2:12pm

A train drew into the opposite platform with just two red and cream carriages.

It would take an awful lot of strength to push one over, he thought.

52434 he noticed was one of the carriage numbers.


2:13pm.

His train was now late and the skateboarders were sat on the platform edge.

Dangerous to play near railway lines they had been told at school.

He wondered what a chopped up by a train skateboarder would look like?

He shuddered remembering the cannon ball ploughing into the Pandora’s crew and then his train pulled in...Number 156433.

His journey took only 10 minutes and he found himself once again on Glasgow Central station main concourse.

He stood looking up at the destination boards and remembered how his Uncle George had once said, that he had also done that in London and had decided to travel to Penzance on a whim because he had thought he should have been a pirate.

But today it was to be back to Crossmyloof not Penzance and only the East Kilbride train was on offer.


2:32pm.

And he boarded the train.

This train was due out at 2:37 and nothing had happened today.

Not for the first time recently he thought back to reading Alice in Wonderland and how he had been so disappointed that it had all been a dream.

But this wasn't a dream. This was real life; real Glasgow and he had proof.

For the 39th time that day he rolled up his sleeve a little and looked at his scar. Well not a scar yet, just a 2"scratch, but one day it would be a scar, and he would look at it and remember.

What he remembered most was the noise and the smell. He hadn't even noticed the scratch until he was undressing for bed.


3:36pm

One minute to go and he had got away with it.

The other boy from yesterday had said not to come back or else!

But in a city of over a half a million people, it was very unlikely that the two would meet again, wasn't it?

But it was also very unlikely that he would have found himself on the deck of a British Frigate engaged in battle with an armed Chinese Dhow, dodging musket balls
And whirling swords...but that was exactly what had happened.


3:37pm.

His train pulled out.

As it crossed the River Clyde he remembered his history teacher Mrs McGregor telling them that were boys of only 11 and 12 called powder monkeys on those old ships, built on the Clyde back in the 1700's.

There were no Wii's or X Boxes for them, no iPods or even proper beds and the battles they were involved in were savage and bloody!

Written in 2005
Posted on WDC 23rd February 2009