he kept staring at me. i looked away, but he kept on staring. i tried glancing out of the window; pondering my feet; standing up and pretending i saw the ticket inspector coming. but he just sat there...looking at me. there was a time i was used to that. there was a time people used to stare. i used to be famous. an international babe, an arm-wavey-hip-swingy-maraca-shakey-type-of-girl. people looked all the time. and i loved it. i loved them knowing who i was, standing close to me in the crowd, smiling, making eye contact, reaching out gently with their fingers.... not now. times have changed. i am no longer a transnational funkster... oh yes, there's still a sarah cracknell. she sings as beautifully as she always did, her bangles jangle, her lips pout and her position at the cutting edge of hand-held percussion is unchallengeable. but it isn't me any more. its a machine, just a face, just a girl put together with kisses and bolts. it started last year, when i got kidnapped. pete and bob responded to my pleas for help for a while. bob said he'd rescue me in a cunning plot involving hammond organs, french footballers and the smile of the moon. alas, he lied. he did no such thing. for there was already a sarah in my place. the boy that had kidnapped me dressed up every night in a slinky number with pearls and snuck out to my gigs, where he pouted and strutted and sang "running for cover, it looks like its going to rain" to a thousand adoring fans who thought he was me. i hear that fame did not offer him satisfaction, and he's back now, selling his arse behind selly oak station. he says its a more honest profession. in the mean time, i escaped....i ran through the streets as the drizzle stang my face, i hitched a lift to dover on a passing donkey, and i got kidnapped by aliens. since then....i drifted. bob and pete have a new girl. she looks just like me. she sings just like me. i wonder if she is me. because sarah c has gone somewhere else. this woman who sits and looks out of train windows.... i don't know who she is, but she isn't the girl i used to be. i've been on the train four days now. if you hide under the seat at the terminus, the guard doesn't see you and you can travel on and on. the guard used to look at me strangely, but now he just walks past, like everybody else. its as if they don't notice me. none of them stare any more. except the man. the man that was staring. and he kept staring. then he leaned forward and opened his mouth... "you know who you look like with that moustache on?" moustache? oh yes, my tom selleck disguise. i can't remember how it got here, but i think i adopted it whilst in captivity. i look in the mirror of my shoe...but i see no-one....i start to answer him.... "tt....t...tom s-" but he jumps in before i finish "catherine deneuve". catherine deneuve? another look in my shoe...the train rattles through a tunnel, and somewhere i can hear a baby crying. i feel a trickling on my cheek, and i realise i am smiling. for the first time since the last time. i try and answer him... "b...but catherine deneuve...dd.ddd....didn't have a m.mm...-" he cuts in again.... "in the days before she was famous, of course. her young days. the days when her beauty could destroy a man's eye at seventy paces....that's who you look like.." i smiled again..i tried to thank him but my throat was too full of smiles and the words fell back inside. he leaned forward..."i know you...i know where you've been. there's no need to explain. take my hand, go on....." hesitantly, i allowed my finger to fall into his palm....he winked at me "when is now?" he asked.... "i....i..." "now is just something we feel in our heads. you and me, we've been now. its time to be forever". i smiled, and shut my eyes to blink back the tear. i opened them again. he is gone. i stare at the window, and i think of you. i think of how you all tried to help me once. can you help me find myself now? can you tell me where i am? the next time you climb on a train, look for me. i'm hoping i'll be there. love silent sarah c +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the undead Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "peculiarly deranged fanbase" "frighteningly named +-+ +-+ Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+