Horses and birds
Around mid-afternoon the cleaning and catering staff from the hospital come in. I avoid one older woman with badly dyed red hair and a long Australian face, because, as she plods up the ramp like an old horse, all she does is moan at the lateness of trains and how that terrible hill up to the station will be the end of her after a long shift. You cannot get a smile from her. She’s a glass completely empty kind of person.
The small group of Nepalese staff are more like a flock of noisy sparrows, no doubt bonded by their shared experiences of displacement, They’re puffed out by the hill but happy to chat and joke about late trains. Lately I’m delighted to see they have taken the Australian woman under their wing. They gather round her laughing, dragging and chivying her along, all puffing up the hill together to make the train. She smiles more these days.
OMG. I’ve just written a parable about the virtues of immigration. All taken from life, I assure you.