The 16:49

The 15:57 from Hexham to Newcastle is a 40-minute journey that usually takes around 50 minutes. On the way, you go past fields, industrial estates, and a Shopping Centre. If you were lucky (which we usually were in rush hour) the train would be too full of commuters for the conductor to even attempt to charge you for your ride and although I always had the money to pay it was rarely asked of me.
On this particular morning, the air was moist and you could feel the pressure dropping as the clouds loomed above the train as it stopped in Prudhoe. It was there that a teenage boy, not much younger than myself got on the train. His muddy brown hair messily scattered over a round face and his smile a little forced. He spent the next twenty minutes writing something out on a piece of a4 lined paper, whatever he was writing was short but he couldn’t find the words to say it and as he decided against each phrase he let out a short sigh and there was a scratch as he put a single line through it.
Twenty minutes passed quickly and as he got off at the central station he slid the piece of paper into his back pocket. Except he missed and the piece of paper, all folded up, was left on the seat as he got up. And in the mad panic to leave the train I lost sight of him.
I was only in Newcastle for about an hour before I had to come home again. It was results day and I had come to collect mine, a smattering of mediocre and shit grades. Only achieving good grades in psychology and religious studies. As I got back onto the train I realized it was the same one that I had been on that day, I was tipped off by the dark brown mark on the handle by the door. I looked at the seat where he had been sat and there was the note. It was still on the chair and it was too easy to pick up. As the train pulled out of the station I read the first few lines.
‘If you find this then I’m sorry. You don’t deserve to hear about my problems and you don’t deserve to feel guilty about this. I couldn’t leave a note for my family, so please find my family and tell them I’m sorry. I live at…” and my eyes darted from the page as the train shuddered and then the brakes were pulled.
The conductor ran through the train reassuring everyone that everything was okay. I stopped her and asked what had happened.
“A kid jumped in front of the train.”
My hand moved to the folded up note in my pocket and I finally read the address