***

It can never be an easy thing to stand over a freshly dug hole in the ground with the knowledge that the casket containing your mother's remains lays within that hole. You can still see it and are the first to throw what is more muck than dirt, onto that coffin.

The rain has been falling all day and is at its heaviest at this point. It didn't hinder the blessing or the prayers which were said in their full glory, and now they have been performed, mum is being lowered into the ground and you have been handed a tissue to wipe your hand with. You rather not use it, as if that dirt on your hand is all you have left of your mum but wipe it away you do.

That pungent smell of dirt which especially comes in moments of inclement weather, fills your nostrils, and lets you know that the worms below are poised and ready to attack their new meal as if they are about to be presented with a luxurious party, they'll have all to themselves. Mum won't have much more luxury than that of a moment's rest before they find their way in begin a task that will come for us all one day.

This is the last image you need to be having at a moment like this, but it is there all the same, front, and center. Pushed aside temporarily are the thoughts you have been having recently and perhaps that is just as well for you have no idea what to make of these other thoughts. So many images have been coming at you that they seem to be becoming ... familiar.

It's just as well those images are not currently present for you may wish that this moment is nothing more than an unfamiliar image, as unimportant as all the others but that rain, all the stronger now, stings your eyes so there is no way that this right here can be anything like the others. It's real, as real as anything you have ever experienced and it hurts, too much to be something not actually real.

Yet hers is gone ... just like that. One could almost hear the legend that was the entertainer and comedian Tommy Cooper speak the words ... just like that. A cruel joke went wrong or was ended wrongly, just as he had his greatness ended when a curtain came down, mum is lowered into darkness.

***

Henry Jackson has arrived at a point in his life had been finding it difficult to get up out of bed in the mornings. This is something which has been worsening with each passing day of late and he has absolutely no idea why this is so. If he were to think about it, he probably would find an answer, one perhaps that is clear and obvious, but he can't be motivated to delve into himself, or to have someone else delve into his inner being. And there it is, the answer, staring him in the face and at that he still won't see.

Mum's passing could be used as an excuse but truthfully it has been going on for some time. Her illness had been short-lived, and the grim reaper wasted little time in coming along to make collection. It is not the only serious loss in his life, and he knows that too well. All that aside, something is wrong, not right, or lacking something, and whatever it is that doesn't sit right with him has been with him for some time. He is not sure what that is or as to what it could mean, he just knows he feels it.

He has ventured unwittingly onto a path, a path where his mind will not wander, where his dreams – if he has any – all refuse to go or allow him the ability to grasp. He has ventured to a point and place where a comfortable kind of regularity has set in. Same-o, same-o and nothing ever changes but it is changing, has been for longer than he could ever imagine. And it's coming so fast he is gonna have to deal with it, like it or not. If only he knew.

For whatever reason, Henry had slipped into routine, a routine of nothingness. He has been stripped of all will, where it had initially become one day a week where he found he had nothing to do and nowhere to go, so he did do nothing, and he did go nowhere and stayed in bed all day long only getting up to use the bathroom or make himself something to eat and even both of these things have become a struggle.

What began as one day a week, became something which occurred two times a week, then when it impacted on his work it went on to become three, four five times a week, and now it's most every day. This can't go on, it just can't, and he knows it. He knows too that if it weren't for his two brothers, he would most likely be homeless by now, or perhaps there would be something worse.

Odd, for a moment it feels like he knows what it is like to be homeless, as if he has lived such a life before, or others like it. There are glimpses of it in his mind, flashback like moments of a life not lived or possible lived and altered, to never have been, yet it is there ... somewhere. There are feelings, moments of despair and hurt. A hunger that never goes away. He feels something within himself right now drop because of the flood of what comes at him, then it simply ... stops.

In what he knows of reality, life is different but by how much? He is being told day after day to do something about his misery ... if it is a misery he has slumped into. This is not him or is not what he once was. This is the thing, it is not a misery, it is not anything at all. What it so happens to be is a lack of anything, the lively go getter no longer wants to go and get.

No, not misery, even with what he believes of a real past that never leaves him. Life is life and as such, most everyone at some time or other will suffer loss. Some losses are more poignant than others, some losses will impact positively and some negatively. For Henry Jackson, the most hard-hitting loss he has experienced, prior to that of losing his mother, came when he was approaching his teenage years.

Eddie Sheridan turned thirteen years of age a whole two months before Henry Jackson did. And in celebration of a coming of age, how odd it would be that the two friends chose to head out onto some railway tracks just to mess around as any two young fool-hearty friends would.

Eddie, in his moment of feeling nothing, is out of order. He moves to stand on the tracks as a train approached at speed from some distance out. At first, Henry took this as the moment of fun it was though as the train got closer and closer, Eddie refused to move. The train indeed was getting closer and closer to the point where this was not fun at all.

'Eddie ... move ...' Henry called out, but Henry didn't move.

The train passed and Eddie was ... gone ... no, how can this be? There must be something more to all this. Why would Eddie willingly do what it is he has done? It must be a trick, an illusion of sorts or so is what is hoped. Why this happened, Henry never found out and this loss was something he just had to live with. If you live long enough, you will suffer loss and for Henry ... this is the first substantial loss he would have to endure, and again, if he does live long enough, it also will be the one significant loss he would have to continually deal with.

Life doesn't work that way, things happen, and you simply cannot deny loss when it comes, nor can you change it, or can you? Trying to lock yourself away and forget, doesn't mean something didn't happen when it clearly did.

But why would Eddie do this? This first real meaningful buddy of his, an easy going fellow not only making sure his own life comes to an end but also ensuring that his best friend witnesses it. There must be a reason for this. It has to be something more than a horrid moment in time.

December has arrived, a December many years after such a horrid event came to pass, and it is time for things to change. In the last year of his teens, with the completion of schooling being nothing more than an unpleasant memory, Henry must find some of that ... get up and go. He must find himself a purpose, one that can be his and his alone.

The town Christmas Fair is up and running. It's a yearly twelve-day event that brings the community together each and every year. It operates in a large outdoor square and attracts arrivals from all over town as well as from neighbouring towns too. He could get up and out to that, couldn't he?

Time indeed to get up, get out and perhaps re-find life again. His former employment may have been monotonous, it has long since ended so the rest of his life does not have to be. A trip to the town Fare may be on the cards for another time, the following day perhaps, but for now, there is a want that will get to see him at the local town center.

There is a new store within the indoor town center, one which Henry has yet to know anything about, or so he would imagine. He has been told about this place by his brothers as it is a store with which they reckon Henry may very well become fond of. Henry had a love of all things strange and weird so this place should be right up his street. So, on the day prior to a certain train trip, a train trip which Henry believes will take him out the outdoor Christmas Fare, he does indeed go to that store.

The strong blue and red neon lighting at the store front seems excessive but what the heck? There is something else about it too. It feels ... familiar. He has never been here before though feels as if he has, perhaps it is just a memory of somewhere just like it, a place in and away from the streets, perhaps. Now, why would he think such a thing.

Night soon comes in and brings with it a bit of a surreal moment, but life is life. It is not an appearance of something odd or surreal (this is for the following day) but rather a feeling, a warning perhaps of what is to come. Something lays ahead, something has changed, but what exactly? No point dwelling on what might appear odd, though what if one were to pay just a little bit more attention?

Snow has fallen overnight so there is no way he will travel to that Fare on foot, it is way too cold for that, especially with the event being outdoors too, no, there will be no walking. Sure, it is only four stops on the town train. He can handle that. Yeah, and it will be good to get in and amongst people again whether he knows any of them or not.

This day is going to be a good day ... then again perhaps not.

On lesser used paths and walkways, the snow crunched under his feet, it was more mush and ice or even less so on the busier spots he came to, and all this was good. The sharpness of it all, it felt fresh, he felt ... alive. He got to the station just as the train pulled up, ready to rock and allowed himself a short pep talk ... 'I can do this ... let's do it.'

On the train and in the tunnel, even though the train has already spent two minutes within an outer darkness, Henry has yet to consider the fact that something might be wrong. He had been lost in a daydream and despite the fact that, while daydreaming, he had been looking out the window he sits next to, he has yet to consider as to why the tunnel is as dark as it so happens to be. He had yet to consider why he had yet to exit that tunnel.

He briefly looks around having come out of his daydream. Another passenger rushes past him and down the aisle. Then he sees him. Henry sees Eddie Sheridan, on the train, and looking just as young as he had the day he stood on the tracks when an approaching train hit ... wait ... this is not right ... there is indeed something very wrong here.