A Week From Satan Himself ...

Afternoon All,

Some people have described me as lucky, but after this week I doubt that this would be falling out of anyone's mouth any time soon. Allow me to explain the disastrous week I have just encountered. So after last week's dinner with Miss Chocolate on Tuesday and planning some more frolicking during these long, hot summer's days I was in a positive mood, not to mention finally putting down a deposit on my new home. But then Wednesday arrived and with it some woe.

Wednesday morning was like any other. I was up dressed and ready for work, watching some daytime TV and having breakfast before making my way to the station. After arriving on platform two and now waiting for my train I began to search through my social media channels and listen to music. A normal day. Until that is I begin to notice all the people from the opposite platform start to make their way up the stairs and over the walkway. As I watched this spectacle I saw a young blonde women walk down the stairs onto my platform when I was the only one waiting for the train to Bedford. She asked me to come with her to the ticket station. Panicked I had done something wrong I asked what the matter was to which she replied calmly with 'nothing'. As I went to pick up my bag she asked that I not look behind me. Not taking much notice I hooked my satchel over my shoulder and carried my steel-framed Rayleigh up the stairs and along the walk way. Nothing prepared me for what I saw when I turned to face the uniformed man at the end of the passenger bridge. As I turned to face the man in the train provider uniform I caught a glimpse of something horrifying. A man's head. Severed from his body. Alone. On the platform I had my back to. I cant remember a face but what I can remember is a thick, dark brown mass of hair covering this man's head. The face I do not remember.

As the colour drained from my face and my stomach churned at what my eyes had just glanced over, the uniformed man had clocked what I had just seen and pushed me out of view from it. He started to explain what had just happened even though I knew, telling me what would happen and that it would take up to several hours to clean up the mess. Even as I was told to go to the ticket office it still hadn't set in that I had just seen. A man been hit by a high-speed train. Accident or suicide, no-one knows. The pieces of human spread across the tracks will remain with me forever. The dark, matted hairy head of a man I never knew. All seen on this scorching Wednesday morning.

Upon arrival to the ticket office, I and some fellow passengers was told someone would be out in a second to speak to us. Amongst swarms of police officers, cop cars, vans and motorbikes, we all stood there waiting to be told the out come of our journey's. As time went on I decided I should call work to let them know what had happened and that I may well be late in. As the dialling tone of my phone played in the background I witnessed police men in vivid yellow jackets carry a white body bag with a dark mass at the bottom. This confirmed what I had seen. And as a voice picked up on the other end of the line I started to croak. Needless to say that I was told to go home and get some rest. I never knew that something like this would affect me in such a way it would bring me to tears. A man I never met, only seconds earlier a living, breathing, human with limbs attached and blood racing through his body. And now he was no more.

After finally coming to terms with Wednesday's incidents I returned to work and was grateful when Friday arrived. Walking into work and putting my lunch in the fridge I began to feel a little more normal. It was at this point that life was spun on its head once again for me. Less than five minutes before my shift was meant to start I get a call. I answered. My agency. As I took the call outside the office I listened intently as they explained how despite everything - The success, the progress, the moving forward in terms of improvement; my employment was to be terminated as of that moment. Devastated I broke once more. After everything I had been told about making all the right moves, about being on track and making brilliant progress that the company had decided I was not worthy of a permanent position. Upset turned to anger quickly resulting in me lashing out at the lady on the other end of the phone. Why hadn't I been tole earlier? Why was it that after an hour-and-a-half commute into work and after walking into the office filled with embarrassed faces and sheepish looks I was to be told now? Apparently my agency was a 'bit tied up' in the morning and so had only got round to them telling me now. Less than five minutes before my shift was meant to start. Heartbroken my thoughts turned to my little flat. My summer of fun with Miss Chocolate, Miss Tweedle-Dee and Miss Tweedle Dumb. The Deposit I had just put down on my little nest egg and now it was all gone. After discussing it further and working myself up I realised there was no point. Whats done is done and there was nothing I could do to change that. I walked back into the office, collected my lunch and walked back out past the sheepish and sorrowful looks of the colleagues and supervisors that ultimately caused such heartache. At a later date I was to find out that my agency was in the wrong and have paid for my pseudo taxi journey home.

And so that concludes my hellish week. A week I never wish to relive. Something that I know will make me a stronger person, but also make me realise just how precious life and everything in it is. Right back at square one and starting the job hunt all over again. Only this time the stakes are higher, the past few months worth of life-savings are on the line. I wither move into my new home and scrap by with everything I have or I give it all up and keep battling through life. Hopefully things will change by the next time we speak.

'Til next time, Love A.Lou xx