I am sitting on a concrete jetty in a small town on the east coast of Amerika

My feet are dangling in the pleasantly warm sea

Our dog Lucy is watching a few gulls squabbling over a striken sandwich

 

I have closed my eyes and am working in a bookstall on platform 12

On Etawah railway station in faraway India which has given me a problem

As I speak only English and a little French and none of the local tongues

 

About two years ago this town along with many others was hit by a hurricane

Most of the damage has been repaired although this jetty still shows signs of damage

Today is my free day away from the store and I am sketching in my blue notebook

 

Although I feel strange in this new environment and the heat is rather oppressive

I do enjoy the wonderfully illuminated expresses that scream through the station

Fully on horn only feet from my brightly coloured bookstall on platform 12

 

My wife works in the visitors centre and is due to join me for lunch in a hour

We have lived here for just over five years and are late of Boston

My name is Samuel Twain and I am a not very successful artist

 

Quite how I came to be here on this railway platform thousands on miles away from home

Is a complete mystery to me as the last thing I can remember was sketching my dog at rest and play

I wonder if my colleague on platform six is sitting on a jetty in a small coastal town thinking only of me