Leticia and Wesley considered their situation, knowing that things looked bleak. It was fast approaching sunset and they had yet to acquire even half of the money that they were supposed to have by midnight. Sprinkle would arrive at their door bang on the death of the evening and then they really would have had it. It was useless getting the police involved, and none of their friends wanted to be involved. Strangely enough Leticia fretted more at the disloyalty of her so-called loyal friends, who as it emerged would not rally round to help her in her moment of need. "Apparently not," she thought. Meanwhile Wesley grabbed an old wooden chair and rose to perch himself on it, his head in his hands and slowly considering the gravity of his situation. It was like he regressed back to the mentality of the sweet, pie-eyed teen tasting the world for the first time. Some sinister temporal force had transported him through time, space and mind to facing a gangland death, or severe beating. They had exhausted all options and could not conceive a way out of this.
"You know how in television shows people just run away at the drop of a hat, leave their job, family, friends, everything behind and just hop off somewhere and start afresh for the sake of the story?"
"Yeah, loads."
"Let's do that! I mean think about it, we have no way of paying these people back and they're probably gonna kill us, or kick our heads in bad, and/or steal our stuff. Lets just run away for a bit, take what we need."
"Are you sure? Where can we go? What are we gonna tell people?"
"We'll just explain when we get there. We can go tonight. We could go to Manchester. My sister lives there, I'll just phone and ask to stay with her, she's got a massive flat, and Sky Plus!"
"Your sister won't just let us turn up at her house at this short notice, will she? And what are you gonna do about work?"
"She's went right off the rails since she got sacked from the hospital. Last week she got a hamster, then took it back cos she thinks it was trying to kill itself. She'll be fine if I tell her why. She'll like the company, she's dead lonely dow there. Fuck work. I'll just phone and say I'm sick for a few days, or I've had a family emergency in Manchester and I need to go to Manchester cos my family's in Manchester. And my family is in Manchester."
"I dunno...how are we going to get there? Can we afford the train with £204.62 between us?"
"Yeah, we can get the train tonight. We'll pack some bags and just make our way to the station. If you check the trains I'll start packing our bags."
"Are we really going to do this? This does seem quite drastic, illogical and unjustified."
"Shut up with the English lesson. This is what you do, and this is what we're doing, like that Ryan Davidson from my work. He got into trouble with some kiddy porn on his laptop. I mean there was never any porn of that sort found anywhere on his computers as it turned out, but with things like that there's no smoke without fire, and everyone just turned against him. Poor guy, it was guilty before proven innocent, he had to run away, he went to Manchester and he had REAL PROBLEMS. Now granted this scenario is nothing like that but this is a REAL PROBLEM. We owe some very bad men an amount of money that we need to get to them tonight that we just cannot feasibly do. Otherwise we're going to die. Or worse. So I posit, that we tackle this REAL PROBLEM by escaping this city, this country altogether."
And they did. The Manchester train was at 27 minutes past 6 and would get them into the safety and anonymity of Manchester by half past 10. But an efficient and pleasant journey was not the priority in this expedition. No, the fact that Leticia and Wesley managed to get on a train and weave through the streets, avoiding bad men that might or might not be there. Paranoia was heavy on their heads too. Leticia packed a modest bag, of some artifacts and clothes, and things she would need for her journey. The gravity began to hit her too, and she paused and swayed for a moment, grasping what she was about to undertake. She would somehow have to explain this to her family and their friends would probably laugh about it eventually. She reached for her phone charger, threading it between her fingers as she began to ponder the amount of phone calls she would have to make in the next few days. Difficult and in a way incredible phone calls. "I've ran away to Manchester to escape some dealers who are after me and Wesley." would be the gist of them. "Can you watch the house, and err, not tell anyone anything." Their friends would surely be discussing it back home mockingly, with wild bemusement, and some concern for Wesley and Leticia's situation.
"So what!" she thought. They had shat it big style when the going had got tough, to put it one way. Wesley ad Leticia were left alone to deal with this, and for lack of money, this proved the best option, if they wanted to stay alive and well.
Wesley hurriedly tossed some t-shirts, jeans and his wallet, phone and what remaining money he had left. He picked up a docking station, probably irrelevant at this time but wincing as he discarded it, realising that it, and many other things he would have to discard, and he wasn't sure what he was running to, or what would be there for him when he came back. What would people say if they found out about this? Well... In an oncoming rush of sense it dawned that his mere survival was on stake at the moment, and keeping up appearances was a moot point if the former could not be fulfilled. So, like he was packing for an impromptu holiday, he filled two bags full of an assemble of essentials, for touristing or escaping the criminal underworld.
The warm swell of electric steam phased through the massive open-plan station building as Wesley and Leticia made their way through its towering arches and up to the ticket office. The essence of surreality began to set in as they handed over a series of crumpled up and sweaty £10 and £20 notes to produce two open return tickets to Manchester. It began to set in for Wesley as he glanced at the departure date on the open ticket, and for once in his life he really had no idea which date inbetween the 3rd September and the 2nd October he would be coming back. Or if he would come back and the whole ticket would be useless. Leticia seemed to be handling the gravity of the situation well, that she had even put on a pair of sunglasses for the journey seemed at best flagrant and defiant in Wesley's eyes. Or maybe she was just concealing some feelings more fraught and worried than excited.
After six unsuccessful calls Leticia viciously rattled out a text on her phone, imploring her sister to call her as soon as humanly possible. She poo-poo'ed the subject when Wesley inquired about her sister's response and permission to let them invade her life with their real problem for the time being. It was fruitless to discuss it now anyway as the tickets were bought and they had committed themselves to this epic journey, of sorts. It certainly felt more surreal and Wesley, as he slowly began to wonder if somehow cameras were tracking and recording such an event.
"I wish I'd brought sunglasses." He thought.
And so they boarded the train headed for Manchester. Their collective hearts jumped as Leticia's stupid Nicki Minaj ringtone sounded out against the hollows of all escapist escaping fantasy and the device vibrated wildly. Wesley's hands leaped to cover his mouth as Leticia answered the phone to her sister's frantic voice.
The conversation was quick, stunted and direct as Leticia plunged her finger into her ear to eliminate the noise from the grumbling train. She explained their situation briefly, skipping out important details, for the benefit of the public. Wesley's eyes sharpened as he considered that Leticia's unstable yet probably still quite compos mentis enough to instantly refuse an impromptu visit from her shallow younger sister and aloof and flaky friend, on a Wednesday night, no less.
And lone behold, she did. Maybe Leticia used some Jedi mind trick on her. Or maybe she was just rendered insane by boredom from unemployment and this latest drama will prove to lighten up her life, if only briefly. And as such, they were off into the night and off to Manchester
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