Stefan Grieve

The Key You Must Not Lose Stefan Grieve

I got off the train.

No one had noticed.

How could they?

On to the platform I walked, up the stairs to the other side. As I made my way down I saw to my horror, the way through was closed. I should have bought a ticked. But it should have been open. Damn it! I had no money, I had spent the last of it on the key I must not lose. But wait a minute, they could be a use for it. Making sure no one was paying me any attention I walked down the old station platform. It was empty, apart from a twenty something who had short brown hair, a white shirt and black trousers, who was slumped in the seat.

As I walked by, the young man straightened up and said; 'Alright, then buddy?'

'Yeah,' I said, and went on.

In front of me was a door with broken glass at the bottom, splintered, like a spiders web. I used the key and the lock opened with a click. I walked through to the small grey corridor. It suddenly went dark.

In my fear I dropped the key in the dark, and when I reached down I could not find it, just cold floor where my fingers craved for the touch of cold metal, the caress of the key.

I had lost the key I must not lose.

'Alright then buddy?' I heard a familiar, friendly voice.

'Nope.' I replied, anticipating the spider.

I heard a roar. I regretted not buying a ticket now.

Secrets in the Rain Stefan Grieve

As the rain pours into Westgate station, the wind whispers its secrets.

The train wails as it lurches to a halt in the station, it wails because it knows the secrets.

Those who cross onto the platform have no clue, no one knows the secrets in the rain. The only ones who know are insane. Each raindrop is a word.

I'll let you know, I'll let you have the secret in your brain, just one of them, too many could make you as mad as a lost Sunday caught in a centre of a storm.

One of these secrets is this No one is ever alone on the platform.

Not even when no one else is around.

Why is this?

Well, ask Frank.

He'll tell you.

He'll say it's because he is always there, in his nice hat and coat. He's always there to talk. But no one listens. Even now, when it's raining, no one listens. Frank thinks maybe they'd rather listen to the rain. He calls it the music of the crying clouds. His mother told him that once, when he was very young, when he was frightened of the rain, she told him the secret song of the rain, to help him drift into a sweet solemn sleep.

Only once did it seem that someone listened to Frank. There was a young man, drifting dangerously close to the edge of the platform. Frank whispered gently to him.

The young man turned back, but he didn't even look at Frank, not even a glance, but he must have heard him, Frank thought, he must have; he was being rude. Frank never had time for rudeness. He was brought up to be a gentlemen, just like his father. He'll teach his young boy Joshua to be a polite and kind one day, when he learns to say more words and maybe walk.

Frank thinks of Joshua's mother, Agatha.

His beautiful darling wife, who had made his heart glow like an orange lamplight through the dank mists that had been his life before that moment, And he would be seeing her again, very soon, he thought.

He liked Wakefield, but he was hoping soon to go back to Leeds, to see her again.

Not long now, not long not long until his train turns up, he thought.

So that's what he's really doing, when he's talking to strangers, being friendly.

He's waiting.

Waiting for the train.

It will never arrive.

It did once.

He went under it.

He was in such a rush to get the train, to see once again his beloved Joshua and Agatha, his warm summer glow, he tripped and fell onto the tracks in front of the speeding train..

But he must not know this.

It would break his glowing heart.

And that is why, in Westgate station, the wind whispers, the train wails, and there are secrets in the rain.

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