Waiting for a Train to Remember

[ Good morning, platform dwellers! I regret to notify you of the lateness of the incoming train. It should be here at 0757, but it seems it will be here at 0819. May I, however, ask you to forgive me if this information is not accurate? I assure you I will do my very best to update you when I am better informed. ]

Never mind - thought Jole - I'll take the time to read a few pages of my book.

[ One more thing (I don't know why I didn't mention it before) - the train is delayed because we are waiting for it to remember. ]

Jole stopped. He lowered his book. Remember? - he thought. What does a train need to remember?

...

The darkness of the morning was like a blanket over her consciousness. It was warm and comforting and she wanted to drift in slumber for all time. A voice gently called. She blinked and tried to focus, but the world was still indistinct. She was young. She delicately shined. Sometimes she stumbled, but she was always lifted by the kindness around her. She was cosseted with forgiveness. But she had a purpose. Her purpose gave meaning. Her meaning drew her softly into the light.

...

[ Oh dear, I don't want to have to tell you this. The expected time of arrival has increased by two minutes. I am so sorry. ]

Jole pondered. The pages flipped and the words rippled. He would be late. But no matter. His seat would be warmed by his absence. The eyes would construct his presence.

...

She was her wheels, her paint, the diesel aroma, as it filtered languidly through her understanding. Every morning, rumbling through layers of liquid nothing, the barely discernible fizz of dawning. Who she was, who she would be and the daily dissemination at the end of the track. Only today something was different. Today there was doubt. Today her remembering was obscured by clouds. Clouds formed of dreams of another.

...

"Hey!"

What?

"Hey bookworm!"
 
Do you-?

"Yeah, I mean you!"

Oh...

"The train's cancelled, did you hear?"

I didn't-

"You've been standing there like-"

The pages fluttered and tumbled and his thoughts travelled and they were not delayed and they were not troubled by leaves or signal faults or frost or...

"-like you're in a dream."

Cancelled.

"You should go home or something."

Cancelled.

...

Go home, she thought. That's it. That's all. The clouds reforming. Precipitation chaotically aligned, and yet...

{ given shape by her desires }

To travel would be to conform. The tracks would comfort, but the gentlest of hand often suffocates.

{ another }

He expects. He waits. His thoughts a jumble. He distracts with pages and words and other people's stories.

They desire the click, connection, arrival at the station.

Following the immutable, indestructible, infallible timetable, which draws them closer... and yet..

...

[ I cannot even begin to express the depth of my regret. A cancellation! I am obliged to inform you that there are buses, but rest assured I do not for one minute believe that this compensates for the derailing (no pun intended) of your schedule. I implore you, however, to accept with grace this token gesture of my heartfelt contrition... ]

A fluttering. A soft warm breeze. The platform dwellers looked up, all as one; only then Jole realised there was only one.

"Go home," the other platform dweller had said - then taken his own advice.

The fluttering was light and the light was evanescent and the vapour of thought dispersed and merged and travelled and lingered and suddenly, over a thousand years, he became what he desired, and she was everything she had never known she had dreamed. And the dream forgot. And the cloud dispersed.

...

[ Waiting. Do you remember? Not a train, a thought. But it never arrives. What did you expect? It's cancelled. Catch a bus. Go home. But please be careful. Due to today's precipitation, the surfaces may be slippery. ]