He never used the Rail Season Ticket Calculator again. He didn’t have to.

£4,872. Equivalent to: 74% of your monthly mortgage. The train company will invest this in “enhanced platform seating” (three new benches at a station you don’t use).

His stomach lurched. He’d forgotten the renewal—again. The annual fare had just jumped another 4.8%, a fact the transport authority announced on the same day they apologised for “unforeseen timetable turbulence.”

Not the official one, which was deliberately anemic: Enter station A, station B, receive a single number. No. Mark needed the forbidden one. The one whispered about in carriage corners by veteran commuters with thousand-yard stares.

And it whispered the same truth, over and over: You already know.