The Offer - Part One

Another first draft of a story, which I later submitted for the Aeon Award 2009. And unsurprisingly didn't win! I was in a very dark place writing this. Looking back now, I think I was in real danger of slipping off the edge of the world. This story was pure torture to coax out, as depression and writer's block bore down on me like a lead weight. Every word was like pulling teeth. Reading it now, I think it's a horrible story but I'm putting it out there anyway, because I'm kind like that.  :-p


They say write what you know, and the central character here is certainly me. His feelings about his life and his job are mine. Against my will I also know about the railway. However, you'll be pleased to hear that I've never done the things that he does. 


It's quite long, so I've broken it up into six sections, as it was on paper. 

The Offer

by David Thorne

“Show the man your ticket” says the harassed looking young woman. The flushed infant in her charge looks up vacantly, the ticket in question clenched in a chubby fist. Melted chocolate oozes from beneath the fingers. I hold out my hand, but the brat makes no move to hand over the ticket. 

“Come on Sean, show the man your ticket.” The woman looks at me with a touch of embarrassment and gives a small strained smile. Her pasty face was probably pretty once. Before life and motherhood scrubbed her looks away and the spark disappeared from her eyes. I just stand there waiting. Impassive. Bored. I know I should be making cheerful conversation, assuring her that there is no hurry. But I don’t. Instead I start to wonder how I became “the man”.

The child looks at me nervously, perhaps sensing my simmering fury. I glare back, hating the wide eyes, the long eyelashes, the unruly blonde curls. I want to punch its vacuous, snot daubed face. I can barely contain the urge to scream “Give me the fucking ticket!”

Eventually the devil child relents and offers up the prize. I accept it, as if it were a delicate flower. In reality I am  trying to minimise any physical contact with the crumpled article. “Thank you”, I say cheerfully, though my teeth are gritted. I clip the ticket. I wonder if my distaste shows.

Back in the guards cab, I sit in idle contemplation. How did I become reduced to this? I’ve lost my identity. Become a cog in the machine. Joined the ranks of the grey, faceless masses. A lost soul like all the other drones on this train, sleepwalking through the years until all the days of our lives are spent. Hopes and dreams forgotten, crushed beneath the pressures of work, family, financial commitment, life. 

We roll into another grimy industrial backwater and I reach for the handset of the public address system for the umpteenth time today. I rehearse my well used routine in my head before I being speaking.  “Ladies and Gentleman, our next stop will be the arse hole of the world. Please ensure that you have all of your worthless crap with you before  leaving the train, and please do your best not to fall down the gap between the train and the station platform. We hope you have had a thoroughly unpleasant journey and don’t look forward to seeing your ugly mug again tomorrow.”  I really could say just about anything, because nobody ever bothers to listen.

Is this all my life has amounted to? Condemned to spend my days shuttling to and fro in this desolate netherworld of heavy industry. A wage slave, trapped inside the machine. Banging my fists against the glass ceiling. Railing against the injustice, but going unheard. 

It wasn’t always like this. I had so much more once. I had a future. Now I have nothing. Except nihility.

I could just walk out. I could get off at the next station and just walk away. Stick two fingers up to the whole bloody system. Job, child maintenance, rent, the lot. 

But that’s not the English way is it? We don’t complain. We just keep plodding on in quiet desperation. We accept. We conform.  Well, I refuse, I refuse, I refuse!

******