What I Think

The assassin took a step back and sighed. He turned slowly, lifted his collar and moved away from the bundle of rags. Peter had been such a nice guy. Pity really. Life was hard, but it didn’t need to be like this. Debts had to be paid. If they weren’t then there had to be consequences.

As he left the alleyway, a gust of wind caught him. As if to whip open his coat and discard his secrets on the footpath. He pulled his collar tighter and moved into the crowd.

The rain was just starting as he turned the key in the lock and moved indoors. He opened the sideboard doors and relieved himself of his burden. Turning into the living room, he forced a smile. Jonathan looked up as the door swung open. His eyes glowed with recognition.

“Daddy! You’re home!”, he squealed as he was lifted off the ground.

“Yes son, I’m home. Why don’t you go and tell your mother.”

A quick pat on the head and Jonathan was through the door.

“Mammy, mammy!”

The young voice faded into the near distance.

To be indoors on a day like this was comforting. Maybe it was the knowledge that here the elements couldn’t touch you, that whatever was out there was safely out there and could be ignored. He briefly thought of poor Peter. The elements meant nothing to him any more. No more cold nights. He cast the thought aside and pulled his leather chair closer to the fire. He could still feel the cold outside, the memory of the bitter wind sent a shiver down his back. He poured a brandy and relaxed.

“Daddy, look what I found!’

“What is it son?”

“It was on the floor. Can I keep it?”

“What is it”

He turned to see his son holding his gun. Fear was quickly supplanted by anger. The roar of his voice surprised him.

“Give it to me now!”

“Ah Daddy can I keep it?”

Jonathan was turning the gun in his hands. Even though he was just a child, it almost as if he could feel the power that it bestowed on the holder.

“Daddy I want to play cops and robbers!”

There was a snap. His mind reacted immediately, that was the safety it told him. He moved. He was fast, but not fast enough. There was a flash, a quiet phut and then there was… There was no pain, no fear, just resignation.

His last conscious thought was that some would call this justice. Justice for poor Peter lying in the alleyway, and for all the others.

His eyes closed.

Jonathan screamed.

Across town, the wind blew over a bundle of rags, there was a groan and Peter groggily lifted himself to his feet. He stumbled down the alley and onto the street. Dropping to his knees, he grunted in pain and grabbed the legs of a passerby.

“Hey mister, call me an ambulance.”

Soon after two ambulances pulled up at the hospital. One set of lights were flashing, one set weren’t.

The rain is a gentle pitter-patter against the glass door of Heuston Station. The ticket inspector nips the end of his fag and drops it into a rapidly growing puddle outside the door. He fixes his cap and moves towards the semi-warmth of the station. He saunters past the ticket booths, past the waiting passengers and boards the train to Limerick.

He shares a barely audible hello with a guard leading a blind man by the arm. He recognises the face, but he hardly knows the man to say any more than that. He joins the engineer up front to catch up on the latest gossip. The word comes from the guard and they’re ready to go. The train pulls out with a slight shudder.

It’s the most popular service of the evening; there was at least 300 people waiting on the platform. The inspector has a busy couple of hours ahead of him. He’d better get started.

He enters the first carriage and it’s empty except for the blind man. With his sunglasses and white stick, staring straight ahead, there’s something unnerving about the scene. He checks the man’s ticket and moves on to the second carriage. Empty. He moves on to the third, the fourth, the fifth, and so on until he reaches the last one. All empty.

A look of bewilderment slowly creeps across the inspectors face – where the hell are the rest of the passengers? Ah ha!

BANG.

With a roar of “Come out, ye cheating bastards”, he kicks in the toilet door. He’s half way through the door when it slams against the toilet seat, rebounds and hits him full in the face. Eyes watering and nose bleeding, he stumbles back into the carriage.

He moves to the next set of toilets. In his frustration, humiliation and anger, he aims an even harder kick at the toilet door, but this time he’s a bit more careful – he waits for the rebound. The noise of the door hitting the toilet seat reverberates throughout the near silent carriage.

He’s becoming unnerved. He saw the passengers waiting on the platform, they have to be here somewhere. He moves with a speed that belies his age and his size. He passes the still staring blind man and enters the engineers cabin.

The engineer turns at the sound of the door being opened and is greeted by a mass of blood and snot. “Jaysus, what happened? Youse get attacked by a passenger ag’in?”

The inspectors tries to babble his story, but the engineer is gone. He’s out the door with fists clenched and revenge in his mind.

Left on his own in the cabin, the inspector fumbles through his pockets and locates his handkerchief. He’s gingerly cleaning the blood from his face when the engineer returns, pale faced and trembling.

“Christ, dere were three hundred people on dis train. What happened ‘em?”
“Actually, don’t answer dat question. Lock dat door and I’ll get us to Limerick as fast as I can.”

Both men stood in silence with only the rhythmic tu-tu, tu-tu of the train beating monotonously beneath them.

It was a while before either of them spoke. Despite the inspectors damaged nasal passages, there was hint of fear in his voice when he finally broke the silence.

“Dat blind fella looks like he could be dangerous. Do ya think we should get de guards in?”

“Nah, somehow I don’t think dey’ll believe us.”

Thanks to The Limerick Blogger for this story of CIE leaving 300 passengers stranded in Heuston Station, Dublin, while one blind man got to travel to Limerick on his own.