ABSTRACT
A moment of recognition Just as I was settling into my seat and beginning to doze off, I recognised someone entering at the opposite end of the rather full train carriage. Our eyes met, and as ‘Allan’ began to make his way along the swaying corridor towards me, I realised he was looking agitated, in fact extremely angry. I’d known him well enough, and for long enough, not to be particularly worried by this, but could have done without any drama that morning. He flopped heavily into the seat next to me and, staring into space, continued to radiate a somewhat menacing aura. Then he punched the back of the seat in front of him, hard enough to make it shake. This was not good. I asked him what was going on, but he ignored me, and punched the seat again. Although I felt confident that he wouldn’t want to hurt anyone, my fellow passengers were not to know this, and of course, couldn’t be expected to know about the long sequence of difficulties that had pulled him into such an abyss of depression and ‘paranoia’.
