A Case Not So Brief

To be pushed and shoved at Clapham
Was more than I could take
I was bumped and knocked at Victoria
And now this. For goodness sake !
To be left behind on a platform bench
Because of your hasty rush to board
Unceremoniously deposited in 'Lost Property'
Unclaimed and ignored.

Today will be different
For Mr. Watkins has gone alone
I have been abandoned
And left all on my own
As he travels to the office 
He’s painfully unawares
Of the absence of his briefcase
His reports and his shares

The train pulls out of the station
A mere 20 minutes late
Think up of an excuse right now 
You’ll never be on time at this rate.
And what about that presentation
Due to begin at ten
What will you do without your report?
You won’t forget me again!

We make this journey everyday
In rain and sleet and shine
Let me tell you this for nothing
If its your idea of fun, it certainly isn’t mine
You throw me up on the storage rack
Because there’s so little room below
Never giving me a second thought
But luggage has feelings too you know

The trains are overcrowded
Dirty, old and late
And have already reached the end of the line
Long before they terminate
Every day the same old drudgery
Most passengers on their feet
Because only the really lucky ones
Have managed to find a seat
Convincing yourself you’re happy
But dreaming of so much more
Staring out the window, reading the News
You wander up and down the crowded corridor

Mr Watkins maybe seated
But what leaves him most bereft
Is the Porsche at home in the garage
Because London has no parking spaces left
So he’ll sit and read the financial pages
while he roughs it with the rest
Deciding which shares to buy and sell
And in which companies to invest

His six figure salary might mean
three foreign trips a year
A house just for weekends
Up in Oxfordshire
But if we went behind his life
And took a little peek
We’d discover his bored unhappy wife
And the young lover she meets twice a week
So while he grows fat on free lunches
And short tempered with all the stress
She was planning an illicit affair
It would seem with great success
She buys her lover little gifts
Which she charges to his card
She hides the monthly Visa bill
It isn’t very hard

So finally the rush hour’s over
And the commuters are out of the way
Sitting in their little office blocks
Ready to start the brand new day
Watkins will shout as his secretary
Realising by now that I’m not there
Panic about his meeting
And becoming too insufferable to bear
She’ll close the door behind her
And leave him all alone
Convinced she deserves that promotion
And the latest Nokia phone
She has no time for relationships
Her career is all that matters
She’s prepared to forego the social scene
Who cares if her life’s in tatters ?
Sure she’ll make it to the top
But who can really say
If it’ll been worth the struggle
And what she gave up on the way

Swarming into the station
A crowd of American tourists
With itineraries the size of a phone book
No monument or museum to be missed
A herd of excited six year olds
All smiles and sticky faces
Charge up and down on platform two
Bumping into passengers and their cases
Corralled by three fraught teachers
Which it seems is way too few
They try to keep some order
On their outing to London Zoo

I hear the bored announcer
Proclaiming on platform three
The train to the West End
For a session in retail therapy
Miss Single-thirty-something
Organised with such precision
To start at Oxford Street or Covent Garden
That’s her big decision
Later she’ll return home laden
With all her spoils of war
In bags from Harvey Nichols
What else are days off for ?

There’s banging on the counter
And my train of thought is broken
The clerk jumps up from his chair
And pretends he’s not just woken
Standing there and glowering 
In ridiculously baggy clothes
Is a youth with a dragon tattoo on his neck
And a golden ring through his nose

With scruffy hair that’s dyed
In shades of green and red
He has incessantly buzzing head phones
Clamped onto his head
With a fluffy tuft of something
That is proof for all to see
Where he has tried in vain but failed
To grow a small goatee
Now reluctantly turning down
the music blaring in each ear
He aggressively confronts the sleepy clerk
Who’s been dozing in the rear

“Oi you” He says
With menace growing in his tone
“I left me jacket on the train
Me wallet and me phone”
The clerk presents him with the official form
That he must now complete
Tearing off the bottom section
And handing it back as a receipt
He carelessly tosses the form
On his desk against the wall
The odds of the jacket being handed in
Are slight to none at all

These shelves are stacked with odds and ends
That the travelling public find
It really is a surprise to see
What other’s leave behind
It has to make you wonder
You’d surely be quite dim
To walk off without noticing
You'd forgotten your false limb

You’d expect the odd back-pack
A briefcase or umbrella
But who in all the world
Forgets a life-sized stuffed gorilla ?
Travelling with his companion
Obviously from afar
He'd alighted at St. Pancreas
And left him in the buffet car ?
So here we two sit
A couple on a very long list
Of items forgotten by people
And an absent-minded taxidermist

I’ve had a change of heart 
Whilst on this old and dusty shelf
My day’s not been so bad after all
So you can please yourself
Go buy yourself another briefcase
My commuting days are nigh
I’d rather just sit here and think
And watch the world go by.