A Thirty-Second Found Play on a Railway Bridge

Cycling home from work yesterday, I became the accidental audience for a real-life thirty-second play in the time it took me to cross a foot and cycle bridge over a railway line. The play had everything: peril, mystery, a twist, character revealed through action, and a satisfying resolution. I highly recommend it, five stars, catch it if you can, which you can’t.

So, as I turned on to the bridge, I saw there were two late-teenagers in the centre of it, looking over the edge. He was in a white tracksuit, with a scrubby beard. She had scarlet hair. They had a cardboard box of beer cans open beside them.

As I got closer to them, I realised two things. Firstly, the boy was leaning over the rail, and energetically calling and signalling to someone below. Secondly… a train was fast approaching, and would pass under the bridge in seconds. From where I was, I couldn’t see who the boy calling to… but surely they must be on the track! Had they gone down to retrieve something? Was it some kind of stupid dare? Was I about to witness an appalling accident?

Before I could do anything but process this thought, the train went under the bridge… and here’s where the twist came in. Because the boy was neither horrified nor relieved… instead, he suddenly became furious. How do I know? Because he snatched a can of beer from the box, and hurled it with all his strength down at the roof of the train as it passed underneath.

The girl said something I couldn’t hear, but clearly it was the same question I was desperate to ask, because I heard the answer as I passed the boy, and he said, with anger and embarrassment, the only line of audible dialogue the play had, or needed:

“Cos he didn’t BEEP at me!”

Curtain.

In a moment, for Spendy Squadron, why Degas returned Manet’s plums. But if upon examining your soul you find you are content not to know why Degas returned Manet’s plums, then fair enough, and, as ever,

Love,

The Airport.