A Cleansing of Souls Read Online Free

in his mind now, one after the other, unrestrained yet almost tangible. He began to look around him as he walked, looking above the cars and the buses, the smoke and the pressure. And he beheld the sky and the earth.
     
    The pigeons beneath the railway bridge bickered and shrieked, offended by the invasion of their territory by this curious young man. Tom though heard neither shrieking nor bickering, but merely a sweet song of nature. Inside the station itself, there was barely a sound. The noise of the pigeons faded away. And Tom stood there alone, quite, quite still. Then suddenly, two large birds swooped down from high above issuing loud, bellicose cries before escaping into the brightness of the morning.
     
    Bold shafts of light shone through gaps in the station roof, waltzing on the stone floor. Tom was serenity. A calmness of disposition enveloped him like a silken sheet. And for just a moment, as he made his way up the stone steps to the platform, he heard a choir singing.
     
    I pray for your safety boy. I really do.
     
    Tom sat down on a low plastic bench and waited for his train. Time was not an issue. He was not on his way to work or to meet anyone. There was no deadline. He was accountable to no one; for he was writing his own script now.
     
    Tenuously suspended from the platform roof was a large clock that clacked away the time until, finally, a low drone could be heard. Then with a clattering roar and a painful screech, a train came to a stuttering halt. Tom picked up the Beautiful Guitar in one hand and his bag in the other and boarded. The train ground reluctantly into motion once more, shaking and rattling, coughing and wheezing down the crooked line to Big Town.
     
    Tom had not been altogether practical with regard to his preparations for leaving. Having made the decision to go, it had all seemed suddenly so simple, so easy. Sitting on the end of his bed, he had placed the Beautiful Guitar gently into its hard, black case and fastened the catches. For the first time since it had come into Tom’s life, it would be leaving his room. They would both be on their way. He had then searched the various pairs of jeans and trousers that lay strewn across the floor, retrieving any money he could find and cramming it into the back pocket of the jeans he was wearing. At this point, he had paused to think for a moment. But a moment is no time at all when you are about to search for your future.
     
    After a glance through the curtains at the rising sun, Tom had taken his old school bag from the bottom of his wardrobe and thrown in a sweatshirt, a book and what was left of his packet of cigarettes. And then, ever so carefully, he took the small, framed photograph of Little Norman that he kept by his bed and eased it into the folds of the sweatshirt, wrapping the cloth tight around it as if the photograph itself had just been bathed. You would have thought he was handling his own shattered heart, so careful was he.
     
    Tom, if just then you had taken the time to gaze into those wide blue eyes of your baby brother, had allowed the tears to truly fall, let your anger, your guilt and your fear overwhelm you, perhaps then your story could have ended here. But fair play to you son, fair play.
     
    Having sat down on the train, Tom tried to stand the Beautiful Guitar between his knees, but it was too uncomfortable a squeeze, so he placed it in the empty aisle beside him, putting his left arm around it as if it were a loved one. Settling back into the torn seat, he closed his eyes and felt a wonderful peace within.
     
    And soon the land of hope and glory unfurled itself before Tom’s eyes, rolling by like a home movie shot through a train window. He had only ever been to Big Town before on lonely drinking sprees and had never looked towards the windows except out of maudlin curiosity when confronted by the reflection of a particularly attractive woman or a singularly strange looking man. Either way, he had never focused