Lost (g)love

(One for the grown-ups...)


She was lost a long time ago.

She never saw her partner leave. She thinks he was taken away, but still, she wonders why he never looks for her. Perhaps he does, but in the wrong places.

It happened at a railway station, Euston, she thinks. And there she has stayed since the winter, on an overlooked ledge near the vending machine. Sometimes people try to pick her up but quickly they replace her, knowing she’s not for them after all.

She was lovely in her day: vanilla kid leather, delicately stitched by careful Italian hands. And well-cared for, too. She and he: a luxurious, expensive couple, used for February weddings and job interviews, lunch with an amour, dinner with a husband.

She has watched people come and go, witnessed the weather turn from rain-strewn to light-dazzled. She, on her ledge, has seen many glances and twitches, shufflings and surreptitious checking of make up, of wedding rings, of business notes.

Then, oh! Her ledge is crowded with wool – a great green hairy wet wool thing with its fingers all stretched and a hole in the palm. It stays on her ledge and over the weeks tries to be friendly, tries to start conversations, even tries a clumsy advance. But each time she turns away. This creature is not for her. Only the beautiful, vanilla, delicately-stitched partner into whose warmth she folded at the end of the day.