Peter Perfect was at a railway station in India

He was changing trains and had a long wait

It was a noisy chaotic station that was humming with people

Every so often a colourful express train would on horn

Scream through the station at speed without much attention paid

Peter felt anonymous and invisible which comforted him

Because back in England he was a wanted man

He had committed a murder or that was the story

Yet Peter knew the true facts as it had been a political argument

That had become violent and he had not even been carrying the knife

So he just vanished quietly into the obscurity of travel

At first he thought that he would be arrested in days

But days turned into weeks and weeks into months

Nearly a year had passed since the incident

Peter had changed his appearance a little

He had grown his hair and had a beard he was a drifter

Just another invisible drifter

There were many Europeans who had taken this route

As he waited for his train Peter was reading

The Story of the Cadsbys by Rudyard Kipling

This little softback was just over one hundred years old

And had been printed for the Indian Railway Library

Peter had considered that Empire had done a lot for India

But it had been a curates’s egg

His views would have seemed to be inflammatory to modern ears

But he knew that he was a clear thinker not uninfluenced by others

He knew this to a failing but also a strength

His father had spent some time in India and taught him much

Some of which he put into practice if an advantage was required

Although he asked himself this question on a daily basis

He did not really know what the future held

India he might leave India tomorrow and travel elsewhere

Although this presented its own difficulties as he was in the country illegally

Having helped a Danish couple crew their yacht

He had a feeling that they had been involved in nefarious activities

But they asked no questions so he did not probe further

He wondered if this was freedom a true freedom or was it a prison cell

Would it have been better taking his punishment

There was no real answer to this question

He hoped that his country would lose interest in him

And that one day he might return as somebody else

Peter Perfect as John Doe