City

​She looked at her watch.
​It read 21:16, much to her dismay. The train home would have left about thirty seconds ago, and she wasn’t on it �" or even close. How could she have not realised the time?
​Disgruntled, she floated down the main street for somewhere to wait until the next train was due to arrive; her solipsistic attitude ignorant to the plights of the homeless beneath her customised Converse clad feet; not even hearing their pleas having lived oblivious to real suffering for all of her sixteen small years.
Her arms, behind their sleeves, and marginally behind her watch, were dotted with goose bumps. Her hairs were stood on end, but she wasn’t sure if that was because of the biting coldness or because of the sights before her. Not necessarily the sights directly before her, but more the ones in her peripheral vision; the things she wouldn’t normally stop to notice and only did so now for lack of anything better to do.
The crowd bustled around her, the sea of bobbing heads rippling like a wave through the network of paved streets, and mobile phones lit up like fairy lights decorating their possessors. All variations of people lovingly gripped brown paper bags �" doubling as shields to create a pathway �" containing winter woollies, last minute store-wrapped Christmas presents, and maybe something sparkly for That Night Out At That Place Next Week. She noticed, amused, as a beaming just-about-adult marched her boyfriend through the swarm like a soldier; armed with a couple of credit cards, as he followed �" an aghast expression plastered across his face regarding credit limit after involuntarily entering Selfridges.
Personally, she was more of a beguiling bargain-lover, forever being tempted by alluring price reductions with a hawk's eye for a Sale sign, herself, but she enjoyed the happy hum of chatter that buzzed contently around her ears as she weaved through the maze of late night shoppers, regardless of their shop of choice. A couple of well-lit buildings stuck out their chests in attempt to appear inviting, which was only enhanced by their glittery window displays, automatic doors and promises of a student discount. They stood tall, proud; their rooftops literally scraping the inky sky and touching upon the ambient mood that made her cheeks flush and her heart palpitate despite the teeth-chattering temperatures.
She noticed an elderly couple tottering hand-in-hand at a pace a small insect could match over the cobbled pavement. They were deliberately ignoring the many discarded cigarettes and fast-food wrappers carpeting the stone beneath them, followed by polka dots of chewing gum scattered with no particular correlation. Instead they chose to imagine the city as they remembered it in their youths; back when the litter was newspapers and napkins as opposed to Gregg’s sausage roll wrappers and half empty (or half full depending on your optimism) Diet Coke cans.
And then suddenly her heart warmed the rest of her body �" a much appreciated internal radiator as the heat spread to her now shivering arms. She noticed the old man take off his beige jacket and wrap it around the frail shoulders of his partner; the kind of wrap you would expect to see for double insulating blankets on camping trips so as to not freeze when roasting marshmallows round the camp-fire and singing jingles out of key, but much less so here, now, amongst all the cyber bullying and divorce and single parenting in our modern world. He stroked the soft wisps of her grey, cotton-candy hair, then smiled a homely smile at her. The wrinkles around his mouth to grew deeper as he did so; each crease upon his ageing face holding a memory, and some funny story he would no doubt go home to tell his children who would tell their children and so on.
​Not willing to risk missing the next train, she began to walk to the station prematurely, tearing her eyes �" which were now more open than ever �" away from the crowd and the boyfriend and the litter and the old couple.
​As she walked, she tossed a two-pound coin in the coffee cup of a beggar without thinking.

Author's Note

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