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down the corridor towards the three last rows of empty seats. In the middle of the carriage I passed a poor farmer, his brow covered in sweat, his hands shaking. His clothes were wet, as if he’d just washed them, and he leaned on his side, groaning. A young girl tried to give him a bottle of patchouli oil, but he grimaced and shook his head. He was probably dying. I sat down in the last row.
    But the train didn’t leave. The conductor retreated into her cubbyhole and locked herself in.
    I wanted to go over to her and say, ‘I was on time. What about you guys? Do you know how serious a delay like this is?’
    After a while, the train began moving away noiselessly. Or at least I felt a breeze. But then I looked out and saw the train beside ours leave the station. An optical illusion. It felt like a knife twisting in my chest. Any second now, I was going to explode. Trapped. Like a man stubbornly pushing his cart through the mud as it rained.
    The platform outside my window was empty, silent. If the police came to take me away, I decided, I’d shout,‘Thank you. Thank you railway department and thank you train!’
    Kong Jie’s mother must have contacted the police by now. School gets out at 5.00 and it was 6.00. The police would be able to trace Kong Jie to my place using satellites. I wish I’d never done it. I could have taken her mobile with me, dumped it somewhere. Why did I have to let the signal go cold at my house?
    I tried to sit myself down and make myself believe, just as Kong Jie’s mother would still be clinging to the picture of her daughter’s upcoming graduation, that it didn’t mean anything. She was probably out of battery or spending time with friends. ‘That daughter of mine has just forgotten to call. But I’ll give her a good talking-to when she gets home.’
    I started counting. By the time I get to two hundred the train will have left, I said to myself. Six hundred. We were still at the same platform. Just as I had decided to get up and ask the steward if she could let me off the train, a long whistle broke the silence. I froze. Then pure joy, as if in that moment I’d become another person. The sun had nearly disappeared and the sky was turning a dark blue. Branches were retreating, houses receding, the moon was trailing behind us. The world was finally on the fucking move.
    But suddenly I felt alarmed. I wasn’t leaving, I wascutting myself off. A forever goodbye.
    So began my life on the run.
    I fell asleep amid the train’s clanging.
    I’m walking towards the security check with dread like a stone in my stomach. The old policeman pats me down and tells me to go, impatience in his voice. I want to raise my arms and hoot, but I sense one of the other officers looking up at me. A pair of young eyes filled with a frightening sense of duty. Sweeping searchlights. They come to a stop on my back – ten more steps to safety – and I keep walking under the heat of his suspicion.
    Until: ‘You there! You’re bleeding.’
    Sirens start and I’m running and, with legs made of springs, I leap up and over the roof. I’m flying through the air. I’ve escaped, I think. I look back, but they’re right behind me. They’re not giving up that easily. I escape into an old building by the side of the road.
    I wake to the sound of thumping. Shit. The train is starting to move. Shit, shit. Only as the faces of the strangers around me come into focus do I return to reality. I go to the toilet, but it’s locked, so I walk down the corridor and smoke a cigarette. The train is like a fish gliding through dark waters. I’m having a bit of a poetic moment.
    I go back to my seat. Then I see them, two police officers standing at the other end of the carriage. They are carrying card machines to check everyone’s IDs. All these innocents, happily rooting around in their bags. I couldn’t tell if this was routine or they were looking for something in particular. But I didn’t have time to think. I turned