Frame Story

I found another short story intro that I wrote a while back, probably in my senior year of high school. This is a frame story (like Canterbury Tales) that I had to write for a class assignment. As always, feedback is more than welcome!


Untitled as of yet

In a run-down train station in the backwaters of a London suburb, five people sat waiting. The rest of the station was empty, just as one would expect at three in the morning. Sitting in cheap plastic seats, the would-be passengers were as varied as the station was filthy. We were all waiting for our train, which was delayed, of course. It seems London trains are always late. From behind my book, I sat watching them, as I was apt to do in situations such as this. I enjoy people-watching. No matter where you go, what time it is, or whom you are with, you will always learn something from observing those around you.
And so I sat and watched.


There was a businessman there, waiting. His suit was slightly wrinkled, his hair a little disheveled. A gold ring on his left hand told me the fellow was married – probably on his way home to wife and kids after a long business trip. His briefcase was battered from use, his laptop outdated. Obviously exhausted, he kept nodding off, only to jolt awake a minute or two later. My years of observing told me that this man was a hard-working man. Dedicated workers have this keen look about their eyes, even when they’re as wearied and fatigued as this man was.

There was nothing else of interest in this man’s appearance, and I could not glean any more information from him whilst he was asleep, so I wished him good dreams, and my attention shifted to the pair next to him.


A young mother and her toddler were sitting just a few seats away from the weary businessman. The mother looked to be about twenty or twenty-one years old, with dark tresses pulled hastily back into a single long braid. She wore ragged jeans and an oversized sweatshirt. In conjunction with her wardrobe, mascara smears made her look utterly fatigued. No ring on her finger belied a husband, and so I assumed her to be single. A small duffle bag lay at her feet, very possibly holding all her worldly possessions. Every so often she would stifle a yawn, and occasionally murmur some quiet words to the child on her lap. Both her exhaustion and her attachment to her little boy were obvious. She was every bit the picture of a haggard, young single mother.

Her child was in her lap, his thumb in his mouth. Like his mother’s, the clothes adorning his small frame were obviously second-hand. A ragged blanket was clutched in his hand, seemingly the only the treasure the boy had ever known. As he shifted, the battered baseball cap on his head slid off, revealing a stark difference between mother and child. Though their general appearances were similar, the mother’s dark hair was contrasted by her child’s red-orange mop. While most children would have slept restlessly or even screamed, this red-haired boy was peaceful. It seemed to me that this early-morning train station scenario was familiar to him. I wondered what might have brought the boy and his mother to this wretched station at so ungodly an hour. Possibly nothing more than needing to catch an early train; possibly no less than a horrible domestic situation. They both looked so sweet, the little boy now asleep, I hoped the situation was nothing so horrible as my imagination would allow me to think.

I silently wished the both of them well, and once again shifted my attention.


Next to the rag-tag family pair was a middle-aged man, the exact antithesis of his neighbors. He wore a button-front shirt under a suit coat, with square, horn-rimmed glasses. The combination of his attire, upright posture, and gray-speckled hair instantly gave away his vocation: he was a professor, probably of science, and likely representing Oxford University. Yes, I saw it now – an old leather satchel emblazoned with the Oxford insignia. No doubt he was en route to one convention or another. Despite the early hour and run-down station, the professor was alert and clean-pressed, engrossed in a dog-eared copy of the World Astronomical Society Journal. Aha, thought I, another clue as to the man’s character. An astronomer, then, or an astrophysicist. They were always snooty, astronomers were, at least in my limited experience. Always had their heads in the clouds, if you’ll pardon the jest. This one seemed to be no exception. As the small child awoke and began to fuss a bit, the professor looked down his long nose at him, got up, and moved to a seat across the deserted room. The young mother muttered an apology as she tried to quiet her fretting child, and soon enough, all was quiet once more.


The fifth and final person in the room was also the most intriguing. Baggy pants, a filthy threadbare shirt, and an equally filthy skullcap pulled over a greasy mop of tangled hair made this man’s fortune clear: he was a beggar, a bum. His pinched, hungry-looking face made his dark eyes seem sunken, like black holes in his skull. I amusedly thought that perhaps the professor would like to have a look at this poor man’s eyes, to see what kind of universe existed there. But no, the pretentious professor would never condescend to examine a vegabond. The beggar sat in a corner, off away from everyone else. Clearly he knew his social standing and had accepted it, was used to it. He, like I, sat watching the others, probably realizing more than they did just how much they had.

It surprised me, at first, that, of all the people in the room, the one I felt most similar to was the beggar. There just seemed to be something about him that I connected with, a certain quality he possessed that none of the others had.



My watching had made its rounds; there was no one else left to observe. And so my attention returned once more to my ever-constant companion of a book.