He met someone strange one night at a railway station. A woman sitting on a bench. Her posture & style made her seem very confident- almost cocky. He hurried towards her. He had gotten off the train at that station only to look for someone but he didn’t know who it was. What made it easy for him was that there was absolutely nobody at the station except for her at that time. As soon as he stepped outside the train, it went very quiet. He looked back at the train to find out that the whole train had suddenly gotten completely empty. Even the lights inside had gone off. He didn’t have time to think or worry about it though.
He went straight to the woman sitting in front of him. It seemed that the woman could hear him talk but chose (intentionally) not to respond. He kept trying to get a response out of her by saying out things loud and gesturing towards her animatedly but nothing seemed to have been working. The woman kept looking at him straight in the eyes but did not utter a word. She had cold eyes- very cold. Like a forest that hadn’t had rain in eons but had still survived and was therefore arrogantly languid about it. He wanted something said from her desperately as he did not have time. His train was about to leave the station and he couldn’t stay back. He wanted her to listen to him and acknowledge so that he could hand her over something very important. It was a small box that had handwritten notes in it: memoirs and instructions. He wanted her to take those, read them, remember something and change herself afterwards. She didn’t seem to care.
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The train started to move. He began pleading to her now. All she had for him was a conceited simper. She shook her head a couple of times almost pitying him for what he was. He had, by that time, gone down to his knees in front of her bench. She leaned forward and put her hands on his shoulders while moving her face towards his. Frightened, he tried to pull himself back but her grip on his shoulders was unexpectedly strong. She felt his puny effort to retreat and shook her head once again signalling him to stop doing it. She kept staring into his eyes frigidly as she moved herself closer. He felt his life being sucked out of him through his eyes. She went past his cheek and stopped alongside his ear. He could feel her breath on his earlobe. It was as icy-cold. His eyes had gone wide like he had accepted his loss and was merely waiting for the result to be announced. Everything around him had muted as if the whole universe had come to a standstill in anticipation of what she was about to say. “I’m not going to change”, she whispered. “You know why? Because what you see is already a change. You don’t like it but it doesn’t matter anymore- it’s too late. You can keep the box with you and cherish what’s inside yourself”, she said.
The train had started gaining a little pace now. He pulled his head back and started staring at her worryingly in what seemed to be a complete shock & revelation for him. He saw somebody else in her this time. She gave him an acknowledging smirk and said, “Yes! I’m the new you. You don’t need to worry about the train anymore because you’re not going anywhere. What starts from here is my time & my journey.”
She put her weight on her hands placed on his shoulders and stood up to begin her brisk yet imperious walk towards the train. The past watched the present leave for the future as the train left the station and disappeared into darkness.
A few minutes later, the station master stepped out of his office yawning to make arrangements for the arriving train.
“Somebody call an ambulance!”, he shouted.
-Hammad A. Mateen
Hammad Abdul Mateen's Blog 