Brewing Trouble?

I sat… deep in thought, sipping at my coffee. My wake-up juice of choice. The train chugged steadily along. I watched the landscape easy by. The Royal Canal, attired in full summer splendour. Big lily pads, rushes, reeds… algal bloom and an assorted array of aquatic plants colour in the dark still water. The canal beckons. I stare blankly out of the window… like I do almost every working morning.

Why don’t you do something constructive… you may ask? I’ve tried but now the trip is so short… 2 stations, almost as soon as I’ve booted up the little black job and typed a line or two then it’s time to get off at my station. There are advantages to working closer to home. So… most mornings I indulge in an early morning mind clear-out. Sit and ponder, sit and stare… sit and wonder about it all. Sit. Relax… contemplate the coming day’s activities or reminisce about past sins.

I’m still deep in thought when the train stops at Maynooth a few minutes later. Two school kids, seemingly a brother and sister, flop into the seats across the aisle. What? School kids? Yep… and I’m sure I recognise that crest on the boy’s jumper. Some fancy school in town. I don’t pay them too much heed, until a lanky black-haired lad makes his appearance and plonks himself down directly opposite me. Slowly… very slowly, I’m drawn out of my early morning space trip. The mists of the past waft away. Do I know that face? No… surely not!

Why would I recognise the face? I’m not sure. My mind changes a gear or two… could this be the ‘boss-boy’ lad I’d first written about almost two years ago? Could this be the lad I’d again encountered some months later? Why did he seem to have a knowing twinkle in his eye? Was it him? The hair is longer, now a curly mop of curls. Was our hero from back then still at school? Then this may well be the beginning of his final year.

Then another thought crossed a dusty mental track. The thought kicked up tiny puffs of earth as it disappeared into the bush on the opposite side. Those brief, infrequent meetings resulted when I needed to catch the earlier train. Now that earlier service was my regular. Oh boy, was I to be subjected to the antics of the lads for a full school year? No… thankfully the boss-boy I told you about (in the linked tales above) couldn’t get too cute between Maynooth and Louisa Bridge Stations. Could he? Only time would tell but however you look at it… I wasn’t going to change my spot on the train just because school was back in full swing.

And the photo? If you click back into the tales you’ll see a view of the Royal Canal in one post and a view of the Liffey in another. So, as I don’t commute that far anymore it’s good to occasionally look back at those views…