Using the prompt – He glanced at his watch impatiently………

 

He glanced at his watch impatiently. It was 11:15 and the train was late, again. The ticking time piece was like kindling, igniting the pain in his head, feeding it. He shifted on the bench trying to dislodge the numb ache in his backside. Lifting an ankle he drew a couple of circles anticlockwise, dropped it, and did the same with the other.  Then stretched his legs back down on the concrete, heels together and toes pointed north.  A single light illuminated the platform giving an eerie glow to the empty station. Something stopped him. He heard a noise. He lifted his head, twisting it slightly and jerked it back the other way. He scanned across at the platform opposite. Then he spotted her, a child in a red woollen hat, not more than five or six. He could hear her singing. It was faint and he couldn’t quite catch it.

He glanced at his watch impatiently. It was 11:15. It can’t be, it must have stopped. He looked back at the child. Who was she with at this time of night? Nobody else appeared.  His headache shifted up a gear. He scanned back across at the empty platform, still no-one else. The girl kept singing, he could just make it out. A melancholy tune floated across the tracks “Ring a Ring of Roses, pocket full of poses, tissue tissue, all fall down”. He shivered.

He glanced at his watch impatiently. It was 11:15. He shivered again. His eyes fixed tightly on the red woollen hat. His blood went cold as the tune grew louder. His hands went clammy and his heart pounded in his chest. He could feel it expanding, violently beating. The pounding so intense he could hear it. An intensifying rumble filling his ears and still his eyes fixed tightly on the red woollen hat. The four horse men of the apocalypse came rumbling into earshot as the 11:05 to Bagshott flew into the station. He ran to the doors, threw himself in and sat down, shaking. The train moved off.

He glanced at his watch impatiently. It was 11:16…………….