Somewhere Between A and B

A girl walks from, let’s say, A to B.

Leave out the names, for now, they are irrelevant

A mystery.

A is a well lit space, solid and concrete

Polished floors, an infrastructure of steel.  

B is not so well lit, yet it does emit

A glow of sorts. It is an easy place, comfortable,

Warm. Anyway,

Her eyes flick from thought to fact,

From picture to person.

Orange light illuminating a car, sooty grey in the dark

Parked just a little over the line

The driver was perhaps in a hurry, screeching, swearing

Swerving clumsily into the final space. Hastily finishing

His morning coffee, fumbling with change in his tatty trousers.

Unshaven, unkept, unwell. Irritable.

Perhaps the clock awoke after he did, that is

The clocks do go forward today.

An hour of lost time to make up for.

Perhaps his wife shook him with a heavy heart

As the screaming toddler bawled for food

And he stumbled into the shower

(Which, they really must look into fixing)

Ripped his best pair of pants, and couldn’t find

Any matching socks. When can anyone find matching socks?

Are matching socks, perhaps, a legend of the infamous washing machine?

Perhaps.

His eldest, maybe with hair a shade too brave

(Though she could have sworn upon the grave the label said “Blonde Honey”)

Regardless, there goes fifteen quid of Dad’s money.

He perhaps wolfed down his toast, kissed her with crumbly lips

And legged it out the front door

(Forgetting his briefcase on the second floor

Of the two story address in London)

The night before? Down to the pub for an hour, he says

Three hours and six pints later the poor chaps

Upheaving the Spaghetti Bolognese

He had for supper. Man can’t hold his drink nowadays

Says the retired Sailor from across the bar.

A tattoo of his late wife across his bulging belly

Held in with a belt that saw him through three seas

And two battles, as sturdy and strong as he.

The barman stands with a cheerful smile

And sad, sad eyes. His other job, a cashier

At the Tesco’s around the corner, pays a little less

But it gets him buy. Perhaps he was never meant

To be an Oxford graduate

Perhaps.

The woman with the gin and tonic

At the back, tucked in a corner

Maybe lost her job, and then

Walked in on her husband

With some random redhead in curls

(Weren’t those Aunt Mildred’s pearls

Fastened snugly around that lily white neck?)

That’s the second time this month she sighs

Then smiles with hazy eyes

It’s just a bad day

Yet the girl who’s walking

From A to B, and is now somewhere

Between the two, hasn’t a clue.

The man with car, sooty grey in the

Dim twilight, may be her husband

Perhaps.

The woman at the bar, with eyes

Weeping tears her heart cannot

Cry, may be her, in a year or ten

Perhaps.

Yet for now, the girl is stuck

Spoilt with time, blindfolded with innocence

Somewhere between A and B

In retrospect; carefree.