Third Place WestWord Prize 2025
After disembarking, I find a seat on the platform and close my eyes. Just a few more minutes before I have to traverse the concourse, find my car and return to the life I carved out. A few more minutes. Hisses of trains, rumbling motors reverberating off the concrete floors and high, scaffolded ceilings mix with the gentle clopping of feet, some hurried, some languorous, as people transition from one place to another, one life to another. I inhale deeply. Just one more minute. Please.
By the time I open my eyes, I need to jog, displays screaming the time at me in all directions. The universally-recognised clatter of my keys hitting the floor and being kicked by ignorant feet is like a siren calling to the bored and lonely across the station. Before I can process the fact that they are down a drain, three people have gathered, peering between the thick metal bars making noises of concern.
I’m on my knees trying to fit my hand between the slats as a middle-aged man starts saying the same thing happened to him in ‘96. Hot, stinging pain soars through my knuckles as they graze the side of the infuriatingly small gaps between the bars, and my breathing quickens.
“You'll never get it out that way, love,” a voice says behind me, but I barely hear him as I try to force both hands through, my wedding ring grinding against the metal as I will my fingers to become smaller.
I'm vaguely aware of activity around me as men discuss options and an older woman fumbles around trying to flag down station staff, but I cannot move my eyes from that glint of silver in the base of the gutter. Heaving with previously unknown strength, I begin pulling on the grate but, despite my insistence, my breathless effort, it does not budge. I feel a hand on my back and turn to see the woman, her face a mask of concern.
I have embarrassed myself, I realise. Heat sears my face, and the sting from my injured hands reignites, creeping through me.
Sucking air through his teeth, a nearby man says, “They have to bolt them down these days, you know. Terrorism.”
Another nods knowingly, while the old woman mutters ineffectual assurances that it will be alright, staff are on the way to help, that I should have a seat.
The sea of people is expanding, flooding the platform, each with their own advice, platitude, anecdote and I cup my head in my hands, unable to stem the flow of panicked tears, trying to think my way out of this problem as the words “locksmith” and “spare keys” bounce around my brain, enflaming my initial panic. I cannot get the spare keys, I cannot call a locksmith, I cannot call someone to pick me up. He must not know, he cannot know and I will everyone with their good intentions and their casual comments and their problem-solving thrills to shut up and leave. But I'm at their mercy.
From somewhere a coat hanger is produced, the metal wire unwound into a sort of grotesque fishing rod, and onlookers take turns with it as though they were at a country fair, playing with my life. All eyes are down the drain except the old woman next to me, who peers at my face with a scrutiny that makes me squirm.
I tell her there’s a keyring I don’t want to lose, stammer something about my daughter’s scribbles, a Mothers’ Day gift. She seems to buy it: her face softens, the patting on my arm becomes gentler.
And it’s partly true. She did draw that picture. Her father’s hand guiding her arm, the pen held like a dagger in her grip. I remember opening the gift and knowing that I was supposed to feel something. Something powerful and maternal. I remember I clasped a hand to my mouth, hoping it would show enough emotion. I do the same now.
A younger man suddenly leaps up and my breath catches in anticipation, but his hands are empty as he runs off. A moment later, he marches from a shop triumphantly holding his prize aloft. There’s a smattering of applause from the people gathered around me and some satisfied nodding.
“Fridge magnet — that’ll work,” someone says.
“Definitely,” someone agrees.
The magnet is in the shape of a red double-decker bus and, as they tie it to wool from the old woman’s knitting bag, I notice it has ‘Live to Travel’ emblazoned on the side. Achingly slowly, it is lowered into the drain.
I release a breath I wasn’t aware I was holding as the light clink of magnet on metal heralds an applause from the throng. Hands shake my shoulders and pat my arms. I grip the newly-returned keys so tightly I feel the cold metal pierce my palm as I mutter thank yous and force smiles.
I arrive at the nursery as they’re finishing tidying the baby room, mine the only child left. I pay a late fee and suffer the judgemental glare of a carer, who would have liked to be home fifteen minutes ago, but these are prices I pay willingly.
As I drive home, my daughter garbles incoherently, her chubby fists pounding, pounding, pounding against the side of her car seat, my eyes fixed on the road ahead.
At home, my husband will ask how our day together has been while he loosens his tie, puts his car keys on the hook, reaches for the baby. I will tell him about a park. Swings. A tiny dog we petted. A picnic. An afternoon nap. Books we read together. How I accidentally grazed my knuckles on the garden wall as we watered the flowers. How we have waited for him to come home. And he will smile and nod and bounce our baby on his knee and tell her how lucky she is to have me as a mother.
Author: Charlie Swailes writes long and short fiction, and has been published by National Flash Fiction Day Anthologies and Flash 500. When not writing, she teaches English.