Apostate

He’s fighting the window and it refuses; that’s right, old man, it refuses - can a window refuse? no matter, this one refuses - to open.

And his face, you say? Well, it’s raining. Friends for ten years; since student days; friends for ten years before he stopped, before he shut his ears, to all their chatter.

That talk; those wonderful asides; all that history - yesterday’s clouds, rain that now ruins everything.

Yet still he fights. With fists and curses. That damned window! Closed still. He watches through a storm of arms and hands the sad faces of his friends.

Through the glass, frosted by his tears, he sees…

He has one last go to pull it down; to grasp…The glass will not shift; the train leaves; and he sees… He sees his friends; they refuse, old man, to smile or wave; sculptured to the platform.

Alone in the carriage he cries at cows; munching grass, they look at him from the fields, ruminate on his passing by.

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