Train Station

A train station is one of the worst places for a chase. If this were a movie, the tall guy in the blue shirt knows his chances of success could be higher; as it is not, there is the sad reality of a huge, rush-hour crowd to elbow through: throngs of people determined to get to where they are going, unmindful of other possibilities aside from their own, heedless of such intangibles as the potential loss of a love some people wait their entire lives for.

The seconds he had spent hesitating now hang in the warm, congested air like silent reprimands. If he had started running the moment he had recognized her, he thinks, perhaps, he wouldn't be watching her board the train fifteen feet away from him, a tiny figure in a moving picture, rushing with the rest. A hundred memories stir inside him--sunsets, long walks, snapshots of her smiling up at him, woven dreams of tomorrow.

So there he stands, his feet cemented to the floor, his breathing as heavy as regret. The day she went away, she had told him "let me know, kiddo. And don't take too long." She didn't tell him where she was going, and he didn't ask.

For months, he had hesitated, weighing his options, having sleepless nights. He became a ghost, a hollow shell. Until one morning, he woke up and realized none of the lights wherever he was was ever as bright as when she was there. Something inside him seemed dead; he could feel a sun setting inside him everyday. Suddenly, panic, rage at himself.

Frantic, he called her number again and again and sent her e-mails everyday, ready to rise from the pool of uncertainty they had seemed to swim around forever. For years, he waited for the chance to redeem himself from indecision. She never answered his calls, never wrote back. 

And now he watches the train speed by him, past him. He says her name out loud, but the engine drowns out the sound. 

Grace

She caught her by the wrist and said, "Your wings are bleeding."

Startled, Czarina slowed her steps down and looked beyond her right shoulder. All she saw were sunlight, some trees, the sidewalk, a lamp post, and a man, sitting on a bench, reading a book. She stopped and stood where she was, staring at her right wrist where the woman had touched her, remembering the distinct whiff of cold air that seemed to have brushed past her when she was touched. The woman. It was a woman's voice she had heard, and the words had been spoken in an unmistakably feminine way.

She felt her heartbeat start to slow down; it had accelerated to an alarming pace two, three minutes ago. She walked to a nearby bench and sat down, finding relief in the familiarity of wood. Your wings are bleeding.

She gingerly touched her right shoulder blade with her left hand and winced a little. It still felt sore, and she could picture flowers blooming on it. Some were purple, others, bright red. Rudy. He had planted the blooms on her skin; he had imprinted himself on her consciousness for always. She had cowered and cried, remembering other pains and hearing other insults, feeling them again, hearing them again.

She thought it would never end, and she was right. Bathed in daylight and so many hours removed from that evening, she knew that it was still happening. Her heart, she felt, was still breaking; her soul, bleeding. She wiped the tears on her cheeks with the back of her right hand and made a decision. She was going to look for a new place.

She stood up and started walking down the path, thinking of angels and dreaming of flight.