I was given a station name and asked to write a completely made-up story as to how the station got it's name. I was given Waterloo Station and this is the story I wrote.
It was a dry and bitterly cold day in Central London. We had been here, on the stations building site, everyday for the past month. By late afternoon the sky had darkened as the rainclouds rolled in. The boss hurried over to me, “we don’t want to be caught in the rain, you can go home.” He shouted over the strengthening wind. By the time I had packed up my tools I was the only one left. As I stood up and hoisted the heavy bag over my shoulder I noticed something I’d not seen before. There was a small woods not far in the distance, my initial thought was hoping it wouldn’t interfere with our building plans. In no rush to get home I strolled over to have a look, the trees were denser than I had first thought and I was surprised I hadn’t noticed it sooner.
By now the wind was blowing a gale, it whipped and whistled through the trees as I was approaching. The heavens opened and large raindrops pounded down on me, I ran the last 50 yards to take shelter under the canopy of trees and decided to wait here for the rain to soften. I dropped my bag with a loud thud and took a look around. Without realising, I had walked deep into the woods and could no longer see my bag. I could still hear the heavy pitter patter of the raindrops on the leaves above but decided to make my way back anyway.
Beneath my feet the mud was softening so I looked down and was amazed at what I saw, a large pool of water swirling rapidly. I took cautious steps backwards and stood watching at a distance. Making me jump, a ray of light shot out of the water into the sky and just as quickly rushed back down. I ran, terrified, stumbling over tree roots. I turned, as I was running and saw the light shine again.
Out of breathe, I stood at the building site and saw the light shining. I sat down on a large pile of bricks and put my head in my hands, taking deep breaths in an attempt to calm myself. When I looked up, not only had the light disappeared but so had the entire wooded area.
Since then I’ve always thought of the area as the scared woods and water. When I told my boss the next day he acted strangely, he swiftly removed me from the job and told me not to return. I think he knew there was truth behind my story and was scared by what I had seen, this is why he named the station Waterloo, a Flemish translation of scared water and woods.
I was also asked to create an illustration to go alongside the story and I ended up creating some cut-out raindrops with "spooky" trees in which I sketched and then edited digitally. I really liked the idea of using shadows to form part of the overall illustration.
