to the contents page.)But there is snow here, and the black night concrete glistens where it is exposed. Somewhere on the empty length of platform there's a lantern - at the end there, by the driver's cab, just where the platform dips to meet the gravel in between the sleepers. The whiteness of unmelted snow reflects a small lamp burning, picking out the platform as it slopes to where the chips of stone are black between the sleepers. He is cold here, now between departure and arrival, and the one lamp at the station's end does little more than emphasise the way the platform dips down in an even ramp, and how the black wet concrete is eroded by the snow, becoming gravel where the sleepers mark the merging of the slope. His beard and moustache brittle with his frosted breath, his tears unfrozen. Standing here alone, the inter-city link departed, waiting on an empty platform where the only lamp's too far and dim, he stamps his feet, his breath a cloud, alone and lonely, drawn to the darkness where the platform plummets, where the sleepers lie on beds of stone, of little chips of black and glistening gravel, and the snow white in the crevices.
( to the contents page.)