without you., c/o : Rebecca Priddle.,

The station swarms with commuters, the after-work rush creates a frenzy; ‘‘9 ’til 5’ workers hastening towards their designated platforms, eager to reach the trains which will lead them to freedom.
Partners wait for them at the other end, the children strapped into the car in their pyjamas. At home, a glass of wine whilst the pre-prepared meal is heated in the microwave. The latest news from the office is relayed over chicken in a white wine sauce with mushrooms, laughter is inputted in the correct places, as are eye-rolls and gasps.
Twenty minutes later the dishwasher is whirring in the kitchen and they are curled up on the sofa with a second glass of £5.99 Merlot. The television is tuned into a documentary about the blind and armless wunderkind who has miraculously taught themselves to play the piano with their feet and is set to conquer the world of classical music, as well as the hearts of millions. This story, which serves to remind them of how lucky they are.
Retiring upstairs, they look in upon their child, sleeping peacefully, the cartoon-character shaped nightlight glowing from the plug socket beside the bed, each affirming to themselves that they are indeed the lucky ones in this cruel world.
In the bedroom they undress each other with a lazy familiarity that is comforting at this time of life; they have sex in the manner reserved for a weekday night, the process more of a nightcap taken for medicinal purposes than the vigorous and experimental kind displays they used to put on before; when they didn’t have to wake up in the mornings to get the train, or to take their child to nursery school, or do the housework, walk the dog, or in fact have any responsibility other than to the pure and animal passion that they had for each other. Yet they are not nostalgic for these carefree days - their lives are still fulfilled, they are sure of that.
I stand, in the midst of this - the futures of strangers - frozen to the constant buzz that saturates the atmosphere. I remain here, outside of temporal effect, long after my train has departed. Somehow, I cannot bring myself to begin the journey to my other life.
Nobody knows. Not one person.
They can see the repressed flicker of agony in my eyes when I make contact with theirs but they could never guess the true depths to which I am travelling, or how the nadir approaches with every breath.
I have kept my secret for an emotional eternity; my only confidant my jailer, to whom I have become irreversibly bonded.
It started as a match struck in the darkness. The illumination was instantaneous. To guess that such beginnings could reek the destruction which now lays in our wake would have been an inhuman feat. It could not be imagined in dreams, or impeded in reality.
And now it is only separately that we may re-join society; this is one truth that cannot be escaped.
Without the other we must build our lives.
One will have a child, the other will be married to their career. Both will find another to fill the abyss.
In old age, we shall have fond and distant memories of the short time we spent together, defying the world, and we shall be glad we learnt our lessons and decided on the safer path.
Even now, whilst I stand here motionless, I am ripping apart the memories of the union for which I have waited lifetimes, which has pieced together the fragmented structure of my previous self; a sadistic self-mutilation that shall leave scars only those who dare come close shall see but which shall be obvious to all.