The secret I have not told anyone before

I am now going to tell you a secret that I have never told anyone.

The train from Cambridge to London was delayed by twenty minutes, so I wandered off to the far end of the platform, where I could eat my burger in peace. Naturally, time flew, and before I knew it, the train was pulling up to the station.

In a rush, I grabbed my bags and walked briskly to join the small queue of people waiting to board the last carriage. I was the last person to alight the train, and as I entered the carriage, I realised that I was in the Quiet Zone, in which audio players are forbidden. I didn’t stand a chance of surviving the whole journey without any music, so I headed forward to make my way down the train. Sadly, there was no thoroughfare through the carriage as there were too many people in the aisles, sorting out their gear and casting magical spells prohibiting me from passing, probably. I made a hasty retreat and set my bags down by the train door, planning to wait patiently for the people to take their seats so I could walk through and into another carriage. Unfortunately, the longer I waited, the more awkward it would have felt to start walking through, and the longer they took to take their seats, the longer I had to wait. Sighing, I leaned my body against the wall and strained to hear How To Disappear Completely.

The compartment was very loud, and the music was barely audible over the top of all the noise, which ultimately negated the whole point of not sitting in the Quiet Zone, but by now it had become a matter of principle. There were still many spare seats in that carriage, but there was no way I was going to give in to their evil will and endure 50-odd minutes of purgatory in the company of weirdos and second-rate businessmen who can’t afford Bose headphones. After about half an hour of standing around, shifting my weight from my left foot to my right foot and back again to stave off leg-cramp, I saw the ticket inspector making his merry way through the Quiet Zone. I fumbled for my wallet and removed my ticket in eager anticipation of his imminent request to see it. He came through the door, and I smiled at him as I handed him my ticket. He said something to me.

“Sorry,” I replied, pointing at my ears: “Daft Punk.”

A stern look crossed his face, and he began to talk again. I already knew that this guy was going to be nothing but trouble, but I decided to humour the fascist jackass, so I removed my earphones and asked him, politely, to repeat himself.

“I need to see your Young Persons’ Rail Card, please sir,” he said.

The bastard was obviously trying to catch me out. “Oh, of course – here you are,” I responded, in a snide manner.

He nodded when he saw it, then asked me: “You do know that there are loads of seats still free, right? You don’t have to stand here if you don’t want to. I’m sure you’d be more comfortable – why don’t you go find yourself a seat?”

I sighed melodramatically. “You wouldn’t understand.”
Clearly unwilling to just let me be, he quickly retorted, “Why don’t you explain to me, then?”
Oh sure, you’d love that, wouldn’t you? You reactionary tit, I thought to myself. “Oh sure, you’d love that, wouldn’t you? You reactionary tit,” I said out loud.

He looked taken aback. “I’m sorry, sir?”

“Damn straight you are.”

“What?” He looked angry. I was certain that he was about ready to have me chucked off the train and fined, so my mind raced to find a way to squirm out of this situation. I know, I thought, I’ll pretend to be foreign, and I’ll just blame the language barrier. The plan was ingenious.
“Je m’excuse, my anglais is not so good.” I stuttered, in a perfect french accent.

He looked suspicious. Worse, he started to spout a bunch of incomprehensible jargon in my direction. Suddenly, it clicked, he was a french-speaker. Of all the shitty luck, this guy was clearly out to get me, and would stop at nothing to see me crash and burn. I really hated him.

The way I saw it, I had two options. I could either admit that I lied about being French( well kinda) , apologise to him, and take a seat in that vile Quiet Zone, or I could try and get out of it by faking my own death.

I really don’t fucking like Quiet Zones, so I let out a gasp and clutched my breast, breathing a melodramatic “Mon Coeur, mon Coeur, it hurts.” I let my knees buckle and I collapsed to the floor, trying to make it look like my body was having spasms. Lying there, I struggled to remember why on earth I had ever thought that this would be a good idea. I presumed that I had probably hoped that me dying would have made him feel uncomfortable so he would leave and go and pester some other passenger, but this racist zealot just wasn’t going to leave me alone, and I knew it.

Now, only one choice remained. Insulting a ticket inspector, lying about your nationality and trying to fake your own death in order to make him go away are exactly the kinds of things for which those Nazist train officials would fine me, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to pay no god-damned fine. So I killed him by whacking him with a copy of War and Peace, then I stowed his body in the toilet, which I duly guarded until the train reached my stop. I disembarked the train, when it reached the station, with a victorious smile on my face, and a bloodied hardback in my hand. It was another good day. Absolutely everything in this blog entry, except for this sentence, is completely true.

:)