ANOTHER YELLOW INSERT

Putting all the poison high on the shelf, I then knocked down the shelf, and used what I could for firewood. That night, the flames were impressive. You could have cooked a cow, a whole cow, if you were that way inclined. But no, nobody was invited over. Now it was time to get going. Leave Katoomba. My leads were leading nowhere. So I stayed long enough to picture the flames rapidly rising to the rafters, grabbed my bag, and headed to the station, a little after dawn. A train was due to roll in anytime soon. Here and there you could barely count your fingers through the thick mist. The platform was empty except for a couple who would appear every now and then and approach the edge, peering either way down the grey yellow tracks in search of the bright one eyed train, which according to their timetable should have pulled in by now. Otherwise they stayed cooped in the waiting room and compared climbing gear. Nearby, braving the weather on a bench, sat an old man wearing a long white beard, which narrowed toward the centre of his chest and was shaped like an arrow aiming at his heart. His head was covered with what resembled a tea cosy, atop a frame of admirable posture, and not just for a man of his age. If he stood up beside you, you'd straighten your spine in a second, lengthen your neck and tuck in your chin, otherwise what remained of your testicles might tighten even further, shoot up your trunk and permanently station themselves behind your chilled nipples. Then came the announcement through a cone from the station master, followed by a face to face debriefing, informing those waiting that the train would not be coming as expected. There was a delay further back on the tracks. Reports were coming through of an accident, some said incident, but for the moment there was nothing specific. Everything was mere speculation. Opinions spread like a house on fire. Soon the platform was crowded with commuters. The sun was sleeping in and the mist in turn was making the most of the sun's sluggish mood. Then I saw him, there in the crowd, waiting with the rest of them. Even if the light were even less than it looked, I still would have recognized him, no matter how many steps away. It was Ava, undoubtedly. He was suddenly a stray amongst a sleepy snake of commuters now about to go down the ramp and around the bend upon being informed that the train would not be coming and that some buses were on their way instead. Ava. He was here after all. And so it looked like I would be staying, staying after all, when I was oh so ready to leave. It's easy now in hindsight to say I was silly to assume that he would turn left at the bottom of the ramp and wait with the others for the buses, but I was, I was silly, I was plain stupid to take my eyes off him for even a second, so that by the time I changed course and ran back down the tunnel and over toward the south side of town, he was nowhere to be seen. After a cup of coffee, I booked a bed in a hostel for a few nights until I could find something more permanent. Then I called Susie to say I loved her and that I wouldn't be coming home after all, and went back to work on the translations.