Hateful Horace

Horace sat in the Station Master’s Café hating everything. He hated how long he had to wait for his train. He hated the way his tea tasted, he hated the man who had served it to him and he hated the blonde girl with a nose-ring sat at the table next to him because she kept looking at him sideways whilst typing really quickly on her wretched laptop. He hated laptops. He looked around him, hatefully. He hated the fancy crisp flavours they had for sale. Pesto. He hated pesto. Probably foreign. He hated foreigners. He also hated the milk dispenser. Nice Cold Ice Cold Fresh Milk, it said. He hated milk. However, he did hate warm milk more than cold milk, because it reminded him, subconsciously, of his mother, and he hated his mother.

Horace hated the seat he was in and he hated the clothes he was wearing because they were black and he hated black. He hated how much he’d just had to spend on a train ticket for a train journey he didn’t want to go on, and he hated the Tarka Line especially because it was full of old women and tourists declaring how pretty everything was. He hated the rolling fields and verdant forests, he hated the otter-brown rivers and he hated the quaint old cottages and churches. He hated how most of the seats faced backwards.  He hated not seeing where he was going, even though he didn’t even want to be going there. The blonde girl was sitting across from him on the train and he began to hate her even more because she was typing whilst looking out of the window at the scenery, which she probably thought was beautiful, and not at her keyboard. He hated his shoes. They were new and shiny. He hated new and shiny shoes.

Horace hated the newspaper he was reading , and he hated the obituaries especially, and he hated them especially today. Horace hated the sound the train was making, and he hated the golden fields of wheat flashing past the windows and he hated the sky that looked like it would rain. He tugged at his black tie. He hated wearing ties. He hated the fact he had to go. Or rather, he hated the circumstances that meant he had to go.

He hated crying. He hated crying in public. And he hated the blonde girl even more because she kept looking at him crying in public and even though she was still typing she looked like she might cry in public too.

He hated his mother. He hated his mother. He hated his mother for dying. Or maybe he hated the fact that she had died. Which meant, (and this is a fact which he hated), that perhaps he didn’t hate her very much at all.

Or perhaps the blonde girl with the laptop was making it all up, and he wasn’t called Horace, nor was he going to a funeral, and he wasn't hateful at all, that was just what his face looked like.