Station to Station
Andrew French has previously been shortlisted for the 2019 Big Issue/Avon, HarperCollins crime-writing competition, the Strands Publishers Water anthology and Eyelands 7th International Short Story Contest. He is twice a winner and four times a runner-up in Writing Magazine’s competitions. When not writing or reading he rides a bike a lot.
I was a stranger in a strange land.
Go back home.
Words thrown at me like bricks.
Go back home. You don’t belong here.
But all my homes no longer exist. The busses zigzagging across the city are my transitory houses, temporary communities of the desolate and the destitute. Having to rely on public transport, not to have your own vehicle, places you at the lowest end of the social strata; and then to use these four-wheeled shelters as your only accommodation marks you out as someone to be avoided; to be shunned.
I was a stranger in a
