With hardly half a litre of kerosene oil in the stove my missus griped she would stop all culinary chores unless I brought a sizeable quantity of fuel for the stove we were using in a house when at an Air Force unit in a remote northeastern region.
The very next day being a national holiday I took out my cycle, hung a bag containing an empty five-litre tin on the handle bar and pedaled to the closest town about six kilometers from our house. Filling the tin with kerosene and tying it with a chord to the cycle carrier I started my trip back from the market. Finding cycling on the road from the market an uphill task, a thought struck me to look for a shorter route.
On enquiry with some of the locals, it came out that there was a railway track walking alongside which I could reach a road close to where I wanted to go. I diverted to the track lying straight ahead to a sizeable distance. Walking down some distance with the cycle along the track, I noticed a bridge—with no pathway beside it—over the dry course of a river that seemed about thirty to forty feet wide. Pausing for a while I looked for any local to enquire about frequency of movement of trains on that stretch of the track.
Soon a bloke appeared. From my enquiry with him it emerged that movement of trains on that track was infrequent and I could intrepidly walk on the bridge to get to the other end. Emboldened by his words I lifted the cycle and gripping it with the tin of kerosene tied on its carrier began treading on the bridge, stepping gingerly on the row of fishplates.
Looking at the riverbed from the bridge above, I shuddered as any slip or trip in stepping on the fishplates was sure to plummet me to the bottom together with my cycle. When there were scarcely three or four fishplates left for me to step over, I noticed a train approaching from ahead. Stirring up my stumps soon I landed on the grassy path beside the track and stood my cycle on its stand when the train rattled past the bridge.
Those few breath-taking moments hidden in the crannies and crevices of my memory peep out whenever I walk along or cross a railway track as a pedestrian. A succinct narration of the ordeal, nay risks I confronted on my return from the market, to my better half earned me a heap of monitory words not to flirt any more with such daredevilry, the crying need of any household item at home notwithstanding. The very thought—what a muggins I was to walk along the railway track over a bridge to cut short the distance—rendered me remorseful.