A Train Rolls into a Station

A train rolls into a station, and a man waits for its doors to part, one of his leather brogues tapping against the floor. They open a sliver, and he is already sidling his way in. He stands in the middle of the carriage, viciously examining his surroundings. The train seems clean and sanitised, in decor and occupants alike. A woman with a baby stroller makes eye contact with him and quickly walks in the other direction. Outside, the platform pulses with the energy of hundreds of individuals focused on reaching their destinations. The train's fluorescent lights reflect on the glass windows of the carriage, blurring the crowd into a solid, coursing mass. 

 The beep comes, and the doors close. The man utters a deep sigh of relief, seeming to collapse in on himself as he falls to his knees. 
 	”Fuckin’ winos”, someone grumbles as they pass. The man looks around for said wino, before scowling at the back of the speaker's legs.

He gets up to his feet and sits down in an empty booth. Immediately, he takes off his sweat-consumed suit jacket and discards it into the bin under the table in front of him, before ripping off his tie and throwing it in the jacket's wake. Unbuttoning the top button of his shirt, he glances to his left. He sees two adolescent boys reading comic books, flicking through pages at random, while chattering like overexcited hyenas on near-fatal dosages of cocaine. He turns in the other direction and makes a mental note to tune them out as best he can.

His face reflects on the glass as he watches his traumas roll away along with the burgeoning cityscape. Soon, when he can only see grassy hills and fields pockmarked with cowpats, he reinflates, optimism finding him for the first time in many a year. He becomes aware of a gradual tightening of his bladder and gets up from his seat to find a toilet. After about ten minutes of searching through identical train car after identical train car, he finally happens upon what seems to be the only toilet in the entire train. And naturally, it's locked. Despite the growing pain in his lower regions, he isn't too bothered by the wait; his mind is wholly preoccupied with tales of his future glory. Now that the past is well and truly behind him, the future has unbuttoned its blouse and allowed him within. He considers his options. Maybe he could be a doctor, he thinks, before he remembers his lack of qualifications. Regardless, he didn't really like people anyway, especially not sick people. His mind then runs with thoughts of being a policeman, a businessman, a father, a husband, someone who people could look up to. And in some naive corner of his brain, some small part of him even believes he could be happy.

There is a hissing sound, and like the airlock of a low-budget spacecraft, the toilet doors open.   
 	”Hi” says the woman from inside the toilet. 
 	“Excuse me?”
 	“I just said hi” replies toilet woman.
 	“Why?”
 	“Because I reckon that I recognise the spit o’ you from somewhere, I think we’ve met, no?”
 	“I can assure you that we haven't.” He says.
 	“It's Sean, right? No, it's Seamus, isn't it?”
 	“I can assure you that it isn't ”
 	“I have definitely seen you before, but right so, well how’s she cuttin?”
 	“What?” he replies in confusion.
 	“How's she cuttin, like how are ye getting on like?”
 	“Oh, well, ok I guess” he replies,still standing at the door.
 	 “Oh, ye must be dying to use the toilet now mustn’t ye be, i'm awfully sorry now,i wasn't thinking no i wasn't, on ye go then” she says still standing in the toilet.
 	“You're going to have to get out first”
 	“Oh yes you're right arent ye, I'm awfully sorry again, Larry, like me uncle Larry, is always telling me that i mus’nt get ahead of meself like this when I'm talkin to people y’know?” She says while still standing in the toilet
The man just stares at her.
 	“Oh right yeah sorry ” she says and finally makes her way through the doors.”Im Mairéad by the wa-”she says as she's cut off by the man pressing the button to close the door behind her.

The man sighs with relief as his tension is relieved, grateful for this reprieve. He’s washing his hands when he sees a bright pink purse left on the sink. It must be the womans. He begins to wonder whether he was a bit dismissive of - what was her name again, Maire?, no, Mary?,no, Marylyn? definitely not, Maeve? yes that must have been it. She had been friendlier to him than most. Maybe he had been similar to her before being gnawed down in the annals of time; he thinks as he presses the button to reopen the doors. 

The woman is waiting for him outside. 
 	“I think I might’ve left my purse in there.”
 	“Do you need it?” 
 Humour isn’t something that comes naturally to him.
 	 “It’s not mega important or anything like, but it’d be nice to have.”
 	“There you go then”, he says, handing it to her.
 	“Would ya want to maybe come sit with me? I’m awfully lonely if ya haven’t clocked that already.” She gestures to the opposite end of the train from where the man is sitting
 He considers the proposition, before deciding against it. The woman was nice and all, but he’d be starting a new life soon, and he didn’t need any attachments from beforehand holding him back

He didn't bring any luggage with him, and he had spent so long away from said seat that he couldn't be sure where he had been sitting. Eventually, he gets to a seat he could almost have sworn was his; he can vaguely recognise almost every person in the surrounding booths. The teenage boys are nearby, still immersed in their comic books.

 But sitting in what should be his seat, is an elderly man. Perturbed, but too fed up at this stage to look for an empty booth, the man sits down across from the old man, hoping to spend his time looking out the window once again, his view now facing the train's destination, looking towards his future.


After some time, he chances a look at the strange man sitting in front of him and realises that the man is already staring at him. Expecting the traditional shameful look away in return, the man matches his gaze, but the look of embarrassment never comes. Now locked in a trance, the two men are stuck examining each other until the other looks away. The older man is unusually white, white hair, gleaming white teeth, and pale skin, as if all colour had been blanched from his face. There's something familiar about him, the younger man realises ; not necessarily in his appearance, though not not in his appearance, but more so in the tilt of his chin and the slopes of his shoulders. He carries himself with a bitter self-assurance, as if he knows something you don’t, but is too annoyed at your very existence to tell you what that thing is. 

The younger man takes a breath, “Well”, he says.
 	“Well, what?” 
 	“Well this is a bit strange is it not”
 	 “What's a bit strange?” says the old man .
 	“Probably the fact that I come back to you sitting in my seat, and also the small and definitely not creepy affair that has been you staring at me for the last, fi-no ten minutes.” he says while checking his watch.
 	 “Well it's my seat” is the reply as their eyes finally break their synchronization.
 	“It is in your ho-, you know what it's fine, take the seat.” Replies the younger man against his better judgement.

His eyes are drawn once again to the window, and to the landscape beyond. The fields are becoming rarer now, he notices, and have been occasionally replaced by lone houses or pubs. His mind returns to thoughts of what is to come, to dreams and fantasies getting wilder by the minute, maybe he could have more than just happiness, he could be rich, he could be successful, he could be wanted. This excitement must have shown on his face, since the man across from him soon remarks,  “What's so good about what's out there? 
 	“Everything good is out there” is the pointed reply as they look at each other once more.
 	“I wouldn't be so sure about that.”
The younger man looks back out the window with a smile. 
 	“It can't be worse than what's behind me”, he says.
The old man examines him again, with an unreadable expression.
 	“Let me tell you a story.”
 	“I’m alright, thanks.”
 	“Too bad.”

Time passes like a learner driver on a motorway, all too slowly for its passengers' liking and perpetually carrying the risk of stalling. The younger man forces himself not to look in the direction of his elder, save for a few small glances, in hopes that this will dissuade another conversation from starting. 
	
 	“You can leave if you want, but I’m telling it. I’ve earned the right to.”

 	“Fine, just say it and be done with it.”

 	“I used to work on a farm. I was only needed in the spring, but the man who owned it was kind to me and kept me going year-round. On one of our quieter days, I was walking the fields, and I came across a white mare, bigger than anything you’ll ever see in your life. I scared it by trying to get too close, and it ran off.”
 The younger man tries to get up from is seat but his elder pushes him back down.

 	“ I chased the thing around what felt like the whole 30 acres and back again. While doing so, I opened one of the gates to a field full of cows without closing it after me. I was preoccupied with the pure beauty of the thing, see. Eventually, I lost the horse somewhere in the forest.  When I came back, all of the cows had left. I searched day and night, but I never found them. He would have forgiven me eventually, I think, but I didn’t hang around long enough to find out. Anyway, I ran. I’m still running. I’ve fucked up a lot in my life. And every time I did, I left right afterwards. You get used to being on the move.”

 	“So?”

 	“Leaving won’t fix anything. You’ll just be the same person in a different place.”

The man decides that he has had enough of this conversation and leaves the compartment. He goes and stands by the train doors, impatient.  He watches as the city slowly rises up around them. The train reaches the station. When the younger man looks back at the train, he sees the older man's face in the window, staring back at him. The train glides back to where it came from.