‘When I think it through, this wasn’t a random encounter’. James’ thinking had a tendency to be spoken aloud and that could be embarrassing. He checked around him. No-one seems to have heard. The boy with ear-plugs, who was sitting next to him on the train, still nodded his head to the same beat, his … More In lieu of an answer and avoiding the personal: a short story with too much telling and not enough showing, perhaps.