From "Oblivious: by Neil Schiller

The narrator of this story has just left his wife.

The landscape fascinates me. I didn’t know these places existed before. There are horses grazing on the solid ground. There’s a flat for rent in Earlestown.

I picture myself running stricken across these frozen fields and I don’t know why. The end has begun. This is what I wanted. But all I feel is a numbing hopelessness. It depresses me.

I travelled down to London once on the express. Back when we first met. I left work early and travelled all night to see her. The whole way I listened to Nina Simone and the clattering tracks in the darkness were a diesel lullaby beneath the blues. Every time we passed a pylon the music from the tape was interrupted by a soft electronic tapping. A secret morse code from somewhere in the night. It swelled up gently behind the soft mournful piano, peaked like a cry for help from the radio age, and just as gently subsided. It was romantic as hell. I almost cried the two hundred and twenty miles into Euston. And I thought I’d fallen in love with the railway. I thought I’d fallen in love with her.

I hadn't.