Seated Buddha and lotus on a thigh

Your little brass figure came in on the 6.40 from Preston, wrapped in a tea towel printed with lighthouses and a page of Thursday's sports results. Gerald on the early shift found it under seat 14C, and it has sat on my shelf beside the umbrellas ever since, eyes shut, one hand lifted as though it is about to tell somebody to wait a moment. I have not moved it. I thought you should know that before you come asking.

You will say it is only a statue, and you are right, but I sat with it on Tuesday night when the 11.15 was cancelled and the platform lights were humming louder than the wind. The base is a lotus, its petals folded one over another like a shut umbrella, and behind the head someone has pressed a pattern of circles, rings within rings, the way frost sits on a windscreen. I counted the dots to pass the time. There are two hundred and twelve in the outer ring alone. I got as far as ninety before the last train pulled out, lost my place, and started again.

I looked up the hand gesture on the staff computer. Palm turned outward, fingers loose, thumb and forefinger touching. It means something like do not be afraid, or it means nothing at all, depending on who you ask and how tired they are. Maureen from the buffet came in at six with her tea and said it looked like a man holding a tram ticket he had forgotten to validate. I told her she was wrong, and she laughed at me for a full minute.

So come and collect it if you want it, or write and tell me where to post it. Otherwise I will leave the lamp on over the shelf, and the figure will go on sitting among the umbrellas, patient as its lotus, while the trains rattle past and shake the glass.

Yours in lost property, Dilys Pryce