An Eagle

I had never seen an eagle before but recognised him immediately, perched on the highest limb of a dead tree in the field before me. He was motionless, and the only striking thing was his size. As I walked up to the fence he dipped his head slightly, leaning forward into the air and gliding off the branch. He wheeled gently just above the ground and after two beats of his wings was as high as the tree again and now climbing languidly in a wide arc. Suddenly he appeared to hang still in the sky, and then he folded his wings back and plummeted, a dark blur arrowing towards the ground. There was a piercing squeal and then the eagle was in the air again with a small creature in its talons. He flew over to the edge of the wood and I continued my walk up the hill, but the ground in front was as good as invisible to me. My mind's eye was dazzled by him: an agile and lethal creature, and yet the most graceful and inspiring I had ever seen.

The Fare Dodger

He staggered through the train doors just as they closed, so that he had to yank his flapping trouser leg out of the rubber seal. Nobody glanced in his direction as he blundered down the carriage, ricocheting between the seats, clutching at the inadequate bright yellow bumps that were supposed to be handles. Another Friday drunk in a suit. He gained the sanctuary of the toilet and sat down.

As it happened he wasn't drunk, but his hands still shook as he reached out to brace himself against the melamine walls. He suddenly realised he'd forgotten the crucial step of locking the door. As he turned back from it he saw his face in the mirror, dripping with sweat, his lips nearly blue. He slid down onto his knees and half knocked, half rested his forehead against the narrow ledge around the wash basin.

Forty minutes later the guard came past the occupied toilet for the third time, just as the train reached Earslwood. She banged on the door. As he levered himself up on the lavatory pan it occurred to him that an absent ticket would be just as invalid for the next station, but he pushed the thought away. For a moment he couldn't work out how the door opened, and then he was in the bright light of the carriage facing abruptly into a very plump West-Indian lady ticket collector.

He knew he could make it. Carried straight down the aisle by panicking feet, shoving past a pretty girl bending to gather up bags, he nearly fell as he stepped down to the platform. Running up the stairs to the bridge he heard the angry guard's voice shouting at him until it was suddenly silenced by the closing of the train doors.

His vision blurred as he got to the far side of the bridge. He took hold of the rail, swung his body over, and before the surprised stares of 32 people on the crowded platform, landed on the rubble and sleepers only a few feet in front of the Gatwick Express.

A Dream

The island I live on is beautiful. A palm fringed beach surrounds it, and the interior is thickly forested with all kinds of tropical fruiting trees. A shaded pool overhung with creepers and fed by a crashing waterfall provides sweet water. Exotic birds fill the trees with all manner of songs and their plumage flashes in the sun. Life here is easy, with food to hand and time to spare for any diversion I can imagine.

Then one day a ship appeared on the horizon and sailed right in to the island's largest bay. From its anchorage the men of the crew were visible to me, busy with a round of mysterious tasks, swarming up rigging, mending sails, cleaning tackle. They shouted between each other, in raucous voices, curt jokes and harsh commands. I stood on the beach and watched.

The next morning it had gone. I searched along the strand and looked hard at the horizon but no trace of the ship remained. Turning back inland I walked through the trees to the pool and started to swim. The island's sounds surrounded me again and I wondered how long it would be until I forgot the ship, and the crew, and their voices sounding to me across the water.