/lit/ - Literature

>opening to a short story - would you continue reading?

The news came through email that all lectures and assessments would now take place online and that we had until Friday to get our stuff together and move out. Our final year of University was effectively over.

“Fuck China, man.”

Martin helped me pack up my room. His belongings were already out in the corridor: a backpack and two Sainsburys bags for life. What he hadn’t had room in the bags for, he was wearing - two button-up shirts, a baseball cap, and a large brown bomber jacket whose pockets were heavy with aerosol cans and assorted toiletries. It was only just Spring, sure, but he must have been boiling.

“Eating a bat? Now we’re all fucked.”

I put the last few books I needed in my suitcase. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Martin put one of my pens in his pocket. He laughed.

“Come on, man. Don’t begrudge your pal a pen. There are pens everywhere.”

* * *

I reached Paddington just after midday and with forty minutes to spare before my train, bound for Swansea, would leave. It was a bright and cold day and people seemed to be keeping a little further away from each other than usual. I might have just been imagining that.

I am not a seasoned traveller, but one thing I am proud of is that I know how to take a free piss in most of London’s major train stations. In King’s Cross, it is a matter of going upstairs to a bar called The Parcel Yard. In St. Pancras International, again, go upstairs to The Betjeman Arms - do not, friend, stop at the wine bar or the champagne bar. They do not have facilities. Marylebone? Well, you have two options. There is the pub opposite Burger King whose name escapes me or, my preference, the Sports Bar, which is accessible from both the street and inside that station. Those toilets are downstairs.

For Paddington, go up, and up again, third floor, The Mad Bishop and Bear. I ordered a drink and sat outside. Yes. It was sad that everything had ended so soon, pretty much without warning. And there was some panic in the air, too - a tightening around the mouth, the gaze determinedly thrown out to a middle-distance; the sudden disquiet hurrying through public spaces. But none of it would stick on my brain, and the thoughts drained away as if to happen elsewhere. In their wake I sat looking up into the pale light that poured through the station ceiling, its arched vacancies.

I finished my drink and went to the platform to board my train. I pictured life as a painting of an unoccupied room: one door open at the front right, and another open in the background, with nobody passing between.