The Traveller

I got on a train bound for the southwest for another CHICKS (country holiday for inner city kids) week which would be no ordinary ride.  In fact as train rides go it was my favourite.  Not particularly exciting, just different.
To begin i decided to talk to some people, not sure why but i did, i knew i'd get bored otherwise.  So I attempted to talk to the person sitting next to me, an old guy and his friend, i got nothing back.  Well until 2 minutes before i had to get off and he suddenly had all the questions in the world.  Great timing.
So i boarded my second train, i had a booked seat somewhere and struggled through the carriages with a bag and guitar, never an easy feat.  But when I got to my coach just outside the near silent seating area was a small, bench seated section separated by a door from the main coach.  A solitary hole, it suited me perfectly and meant i could sit with all my things.  So i sat there reading my new scientist and drinking ribena, two things that don't really fit but nonetheless i was pretty satisfied.  Until he turned up!
A man with a massive rucksack who looked like some sort of hobo clambered into my section sitting opposite me.  So much for being solitary.
"How long has this section been here?" he asked.
"Sorry, what?"
"How long have they had this bit on the train?"  he said once more in shorter simpler words.  A trainspotting hobo?  I know a lot about trains but this is a difficult question.
"Well, erm, i really don't know."  Not much else of an answer really.  He went on to explain how he also liked this section of the train before introducing himself.  We talked, more he talked and i listened best i could whilst the wind whipped through the door next to me.  He had had quite a life really and he gave me his autobiography right there.  From Being in the army, to working freelance for alsorts of companies across the world.  He told me how his daughter tried to enrage him by coming out as gay.  It was the way that she'd said it more then anything, but he just accepted it, explaining that he has no problems with gay people, even his best friend was gay.  Which apparently annoyed her.  She wanted a retort.
The half way point and he offered me a beer.  I respectfully declined, turning up to a childrens camp drunk is generally not a good thing to do.  He ask me what it is i do and where i was headed.  I explained my university course and made up something about visiting a friend in Exeter, i just wasn't that comfortable telling him what i was actually doing there.
Then he started to explain his getup.  Although he still had a lump of money in the bank he goes from place to place sleeping out meeting some of the worst off people.  I think he finds it hard to stick in one place.  But he told me about the most recent person he'd befriended, a big issue salesmen.  The last couple weeks he'd slept allongside him in the small big issue shelter.  The salesmen had found himself without a job, a house and stripped of his money left out in the cold.  He'd suffered a lot but hadn't turned to drugs of alcoholism, he was trying to start a new with the help of the big issue.
The traveller explained what he'd seen of him and upon leaving he left a present, his waterproof gear, army North Face overtrousers, an expensive and useful present that he left secretly in the shelter to be found by the salesman.  Who then attempted to give it back before being told it was his to keep.
The traveller told me how he gives what little he has to help these people although he would soon be heading back to work to rekindle his bank account.  An anonymous philanthropist had sat down before me.
His best friend had passed away in the last few years.  As he'd sat at his side for months through kimo, through his pain.  Cancer had set upon him when his life had just been turned around.  The traveller told of the drug addicted wreck of a man who he'd dragged up from rock bottom, been the friend to push him away from the drugs, into a good job, life had finally begun to look good.  To have an illness like that set in and take him away was like a mockery.  They'd gone through alsorts of treatment before he gave up the ghost.  Perhaps that's just it, when we find out how great life is and start living it right God considers us worthy of his Kingdom and takes us before our time.