LOST BAGUETTE
Written by James Ward
Sitting on the train this morning, I looked out of the window and saw a baguette lying on the opposite platform:
It’s not a great photo, I apologise, I had to take it quickly before the train pulled away.
I have no idea how the sandwich appeared there, I assume it was dropped by accident. I suppose there’s a possibility it was left there deliberately. A rejected baguette. Unwanted. But that seems unlikely. If you were throwing away a sandwich you didn’t want, you’d either put it in the bin, or sling it over the fence or into the bushes, or kick it onto the tracks, you wouldn’t drop it like that, right in the middle of a train platform.
Assuming it was an accident, what happened? Was it someone getting on or off the train, the baguette in their hands when it slipped? Getting on the train seems more likely. Again, if they were getting off the train, they wouldn’t leave it lying there. It suggests someone getting on the train and being separated from their lunch as the doors closed. Their forlorn face pressed up to the glass. A tear rolling down their cheek as the train left the station. A journey filled with regret. The day ruined.
Or maybe the sandwich fell out of their bag unnoticed, and some poor soul spent the morning thinking about how much they were looking forward to tucking into their baguette. Finally, at lunchtime, they opened their bag only to find it empty. Then the questions, the confusion. “I swear I put that baguette in my bag. I remember doing it, I definitely remember it. Where did it go?” A colleague walks past, eating a baguette of their own. Accusations of theft, deceit. A friendship over. Lives altered forever.
I suppose there is also the possibility, although remote, that the sandwich wasn’t actually lost. Maybe it had got to the station independently. A sandwich on its way to work. Unlikely, I admit, but it would explain where the baguettes in Upper Crust come from and why their branches are so often located in train stations.
JAMES WARD: I LIKE BORING THINGS 
Performance art?
Until I clicked the link I thought ”Thoughts On A Lost Baguette” was the new Arctic Monkeys album or a newly unearthed Picasso.
tx for the entertainment. I wonder how many people saw the same thing and didn’t give it more than a momentary though.
No-one else seemed to notice it, as if a lone baguette on a train platform were an everyday occurrence.
I lost a cardigan once at Shenfield station. It fell between the platform and the train as I boarded. I never saw it again. Maybe the cardigan and the baguette can hang out together?
I hope so.
This might be how a well-known sandwich chain came up with the concept of a breadless sandwich. As they say: “As low carb diets continue their popularity and low carb dieters continue to shed pounds, more and more people are looking for a way to maintain their new, svelte figures without forgoing classic favourites like sandwiches. One way to keep the carb count down is to indulge in a sandwich without the bread.” So from this terrible accident some good has come.
This is not just a sandwich without bread, it is a sandwich without a sandwich.
It looks like one half of a French loaf. Loaf sticks out of shopping bag, bag gets knocked in “the melee”, loaf breaks, top bit falls off, shopper arrives home, is overwhelmed by melancholy, weeps, sees your photo, weeps again. No, it is not mine.
No, it was a filled baguette (there was lettuce clearly visible).
I would like to know if the baguette was wrapped in cling film, I can’t tell from the photo. I’m also interested to know if the baguette was filled or just a baguette, not filled.
If it was filled and wrapped in cling film it’s likely it was a homemade or purchased lunch which fell out of someone’s bag. Perhaps the person was in a hurry and didn’t put it in their bag properly? People need to be more careful.
If the baguette wasn’t wrapped in cling film and wasn’t filled then this is more intriguing.
I’d be grateful if you could give me more details so I can stop thinking about it. Thank you.
It was filled, but I don’t think it was wrapped in cling film. Possibly it was, I don’t know. I was looking at it through dirty glass and only had time to take out my phone and get a quick snap.
It must not have been there very long — surely a dog or hungry person would have snapped it up. You had a rare (shared) sighting — the fresh dropping, intact, of a whole ready-made meal. Too bad you couldn’t document the finder.
Like a lost shoe in the road it has a story. Perhaps it was an installation to get us to think about the transitory relationship we have with food.