Mon 27 February 2006 - The boy on the train
There was a teenager on the train, last Thursday night, sitting somewhere behind me. He was asking someone — probably his mother, which stop they were going to… was it the end of the line… where did the train go to after that?
These questions answered, he kept talking, to the strangers around him on the train. About how he was down from the country. About how he’d been visiting the Royal Melbourne Hospital. Royal Children’s, his mother corrected him.
About who he’d been visiting.
He’d been visiting one of the lucky ones. His friend or relation was one of the survivors of the Mildura car crash that killed six teenagers.
His voice quivered just slightly as he briefly told the strangers sitting around him about it. They offered him words of comfort in return.
I got off at my stop. The train, the boy, his mother and the strangers continued off into the night.