Some questions.

Where am I? I’m on a train hurtling through British countryside. I could be more specific. I’m heading through north-eastern fields and mining villages. I’m going past sheep grazing on browning, snow-strewn grass. But my position is transitory; any given millisecond I’m already in a different location to the millisecond before it. I could give a series of descriptions, of fleeting screenshots flying past my window. Vivid scraps of windswept plastic in a barren tree. Three red hens in a muddy back yard. A drab white horse with a blanket draped over its back. A scarecrow, rather scantily clad. I’m not in those places any longer.  But I am in Seat 65, Coach F. Let’s leave it at that.

Where am I going? I’m going to London King’s Cross via Darlington, York, and Petersborough. I’m going to walk to St. Pancras then I’m going to get the Metropolitan line to Chalfont. Then I’m going to High Wycombe. The next day I’m going to Oxford, then back to London, then back to Oxford then to High Wycombe again and then to London again and then to Paris, then to Clermont. I could tell you where I’ll go after that, probably. Ad infinitum. One day, I’m going to die. But at this moment, on this journey, I am going home. Let’s leave it at that.

Where have I been? Oh, here and there. Durham. Before that, a train, and before that, another one, and another, and another. Seat 28 Coach D. Seat 15 Coach 16. I’m picturing my journeys backwards, sped up, like a rewinding video-tape. I’ve been many places before this. I’ve been to Rome, to Beijing, to Johannesburg. I’ve been to the Wycombe leisure centre. I could even tell you the first place I’ve ever been. I don’t remember being there, though I was there for 9 months of my life. I’ve been around, let’s leave it at that.

What was I doing? I was visiting the friends I’ve missed. I was visiting the places I’ve missed. I could tell you everything I did, in chronological order. I could tell you how I felt. I could tell you what I said and what was said to me, though that would be paraphrased and possibly untruthful. Or I could describe to you certain moments that have stuck in my memory. Like handing you a camera to flick through. But I’m not going to crack open my memory like a photo album for you to pore over. No. Though what I’ve been doing has been imprinted onto my body. I’ll let you have a look. A purple, swollen toe from someone else’s shoes. A tender redness between my thumbnail and the flesh beneath, from carving a crude face into an apple. Raw knuckles on my right hand from rapping against a green door, like I have done so many times before. These are the physical embodiments of memory, and soon they will heal and be forgotten. Let’s leave it at that.