• The train’s melodic cry echoed through the station and about a dozen rushing feet could be seen frantically hurrying towards the open doors. And with them a large, muscular man, wearing a suit, scrambled inside alone with the early morning passengers, sat at the nearest window seat and begun once again to stare into space. After about three minutes the journey began and the familiar village was lost in the distance behind the running train.

    The land outside was in bright sunshine and the sky was cloudless as the train whistled out a tunnel, beside a small flock of birds singing in unison, while resting upon the telephone wires, over hanging the tracks. The man watched these with a placid expression spread across his reddened face until they too were out of sight. But apart from them the rest of his way through the countryside became strangely silent and lifeless, despite the noises from the crowd in the same car, as if he was the only one in the entire world. But perhaps it was the breezy air plus the sounds of the locomotive that helped to block all civilisation around him.

    Suddenly snapping out of his day dream, the big man removed his blazer and threw it sideways onto the empty seat opposite, because after all it was common sense not to wear thick clothing during the summer. He grunted to himself annoyed that he would have to pay for his journey, as he was growing rapidly short of silver coins. Rummaging around in his suitcase he pulled out his wallet and stared worriedly at the small number of tiny silver coins at the bottom, compared to his bronze ones. “Looks like I’m going to have to ride and run again’ he sighed in his head, ‘even though I was actually willing to pay this time, I’ll never know why the prices on this thing are so extortionate!’.

    At that moment the man felt hot breath on his knee and upon looking down came face to face with. “What? A dog?” he said out loud in surprise. At that the pooch leaped up and landed on his lap, staring up at him with his curious puppy dog eyes. “HEY what do you want? I haven’t got anything to eat!” the man spewed angry at being caught by surprise, and with that he turned over to face the window hoping that the beast would take the hint and leave him alone. Sadly the pup did not take the hint and for the next three whole hours continued to sit loyally on his new friend’s knee, his thick, pink tongue sticking out and panting happily.

    Once the journey had ended, and the train finally arrived in . The man glanced at his watch and realised that he was already running out of time. Standing up regardless of the dog, the large man sprinted off the train dragging his coat behind him. When the train left him standing on the platform, the man opened up a map that was crumpled up carelessly inside his trouser pocket, and peered at the landmarks unsure of what direction to take. The platform itself wasn’t very attractive just a bumpy, stone path with a rickety fence stretching far on both sides of the ticket office. The ticket office too was just a small, red bricked building with a badly painted door and a window with a slit for the ticket man. And over that, on the roof stood a large, round cloak, with rusting hands and the sunlight bouncing off the glass cover.

    After scanning the piece of paper several times the man decided to just head in a sort of westerly direction, as he was pretty sure of himself and his memory. Squishing the map back into the same pocket he took it from, the man changed his suitcase to his left hand and started off down the platform. As he was passing the door that he had just come out of, he paused for a moment and saw the same black and white puppy that had preciously disturbed his peaceful start to the day; the pup was standing quite casually it seemed just in the door way of the train. After a couple of seconds the canine made a small jump off the step, alighted softly upon the pavement and began padding away from the human, just as if he was mocking man’s bad sense of direction as it is a common skill in dogs, even young ones such as himself.

    The man stared as the animal moved off, in a northerly direction, across the concrete platform with his tail and his shiny black puppy nose pointing skywards. It seemed as though the pup had a distinct purpose for being way out there, in the middle of the countryside, although he was most likely just mucking about as dogs do. ‘heh never mind about the little beast’ the man told himself ‘he’s probably off to chase a cat somewhere, besides I have to find out where this damn place is that I’ve been forced to find’. And on that note the man tore his gaze from the pooch and stared straight ahead, at a small country road in the distance just up a small hill from where he was standing. Suddenly his ears picked up the clunky sounds of a motor car, and as if on cue the man noticed one coming into sight rumbling down the dusty track, if he ran we would have a good chance of asking the driver for a possible lift. The man lifted his suitcase off the ground and in an instant he had sprinted up the grassy slope, waving his arms frantically and calling to the driver to slow down.

    Luckily the car came to a gradual slow and stopped beside him churning up tiny clouds of dust around the man’s legs as the darkened window was lowered and a senior man’s head popped out where the glass had once been. He was quite wrinkled with age, his eyes were of a peculiar light blue, as if they were a vast ocean gone cloudy with all the known knowledge of the world. He had a small, silvery grey and spiky moustache that drooped down on both sides of his face and tickled his chin as he said ‘well young man need a lift do yeh?’, the man replied politely ‘yes if you don’t mind sir you see I am trying to-’, ‘ well come on in then young one plenty of room in the back of me Bella you’ll see’ he interrupted as the man slightly bewildered at his luck, tried several times to push down the rusty handle of the car. ‘Just pull the door towards yeh!’ the old man yelled from his seat, ‘the daft thing just refuses to be mended!’. The man obeyed and the door opened lazily, the man climbed into the back of the motor car, closing the door again behind him. As soon as he was in the old man drove the car onwards down the road, although not very fast because unfortunately the man’s height in the back of the car was just too much for the old rust bucket, but it certainly was better than walking aimlessly about, at least the old man knew where he was going. The man breathed a sigh of relief and looked out of the window at the remaining blue sky, feeling the warm sun beating down through the window on his face. ‘So young one where ya headed this fine day?’ the senior man asked glimpsing into his interior mirror as he spoke. ‘Well I don’t actually know where-’, suddenly the motor car stopped abruptly, and the old man wound down his window and shouted ‘get off the road you damn mutt, don’t ya know roads are for cars not for careless animals!’. The man startled at this asked ‘what’s wrong did we hit something?’, ‘nah there’s just a lazy good for nothing dog lying in the middle of the road!’, the man leaped out the car as soon as he heard the word dog and running round to the front saw to his disbelief the same puppy that was with him on the train!.

    The delinquent tail-wager was lying on his stomach in the middle of the road, chin resting on his fore paws his eyes closed in blissful contentment. However as soon as the man came close, the dog shot out his slobbery tongue and jumped up into a sitting position his eyes shiny and bright and his tail waving frantically as If it would never wag again. ‘What on earth do you think you are playing at?’ the man asked the dog towering over him hoping to scare him into moving. ‘First you disturb my relaxing train journey then you deliberately try to distract me from finding where I need to go, and then you prevent me getting there!’. The dog continued to stare deep into the man’s eyes, the only part of him that moved was his left paw that rose up slowly to attempt the doggy trick ‘shake’.