Am Station

So he was there. They were there. It was the same station, a lazy autumn afternoon. Yellow leaves dancing with the symphony of cicadas in the wind. The majority of the seats empty. A railroad stretching itself until it looked like a mirage blurred with the horizon. Three people sat in the same seat.

He on the far left was the tallest. Dark windswept hair flowing past his ears. Always dressed formally, but didn’t act so. A constant struggle with the burdens of adulthood. She sat in the middle. At least five years younger, a pale face modeled with long strands of umber that glowed golden in the sunlight. Her summer dress pressed against three books that she held with way more strength than it was needed. To her side, a child, her short lively legs missing the ground by a few centimetres, yet casting the longest shadow of them all. She wore a middle school uniform and a winter hat, golden locks escaping from all its sides down to her elbows.

He wondered if he was too late. The arrivals display had stopped working. Or perhaps too soon. He met the girl to his left from time to time throughout his life and weirdly enough always thought they had a bizarre connection. He found himself casually glancing at where she was. Her presence was somehow soothing and for a spell always made him forget about deadlines, generating buzz or catering to audiences.

A single leaf fell into his lap, still green, the colour most refusing the passage of seasons wore, and it made him ask himself why he never did it. Why did he never ask the question: Do you feel the same?

She was tucked in her own world. That singular stretch where most flowers spurred back to life after the harsher seasons was her favorite. It usually made her daydream. And yet this time she felt stuck. Not with her head in the clouds, nor feet planted firm on the ground. At some point her life stopped making sense and she felt betrayed: by all the songs, silly movies and made up dreams. Life did not magically adjust.

She held the books tighter. Her eyes fixed on the railroad, its gleam like a silver lining to what — she looked to her right. Her reasoning suddenly interrupted. A cat pounced from a nearby three in a desperate struggle to catch a yellow twirling butterfly. It was never in time and, frustrated, disappeared among the nearby bushes. She kept staring still. As far as she could, back to the start of the rail line and the words formed out of her mouth: was missing.

The child always felt like she was late. Losing the train to school was the worst it could happen in her day. It meant she would have to wait for another thirty minutes. She squinted her eyes trying to look at the opposite platform clock, but to no avail. The glass was plain blurry from the cold air. Wasting those thirty minutes usually meant losing the precious time she had to talk to her friends. In contrast to most kids she knew, going to school was among her favorite things in the world. Used to be the one and only, but lately things began to change. She never understood why and that actually puzzled her. She wants to see the world.

She slowly closed her eyes. It was the way she always did to concentrate on all the sounds of the world. During most days, she could tell when the train was coming just by that single act. This time though, the blackness took her elsewhere, back when she was little and stooded by her grandmother’s side watching the lake in front of her house. It was not just any lake, she smiled proud of it. It was one of the biggest in the country, and she remembered how it was to think that it was the sea.

The child can’t wait to grow up. Her eyes slowly opened again, no traces of the train. She can’t wait to see the world. The real ocean. Even if it would make her say goodbye to everything she loved. The very thought made her chest hurt even.

Finally, at some point, the arrivals display near their seats started humming. The lowest key. Then it started shining green, glitching in red, after that yellow. Later it was painting in neon the words:

This line will not be reaching its destination today.