The Wrong Train

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Noor had been rushing for so long that she did not notice the train was wrong until it had already left the station. She had jumped on board through the last door, with her suitcase in both arms, sure that it was the express to the capital. Only when the conductor checked her ticket and raised his eyebrows did she understand that she had boarded a slow regional train, going to a village she had never heard of.

"You can get off at Halden," the conductor said, almost apologetically. "There's a train back at ten past nine." It was three in the afternoon. Across the aisle, a tall man with a paper cup of coffee shook his head and laughed quietly. "Don't worry," he said. "I'm on the wrong train too. I thought it was the one to the airport."

His name was Felix. By the time the train reached Halden, they had compared their disasters: she had missed a job interview, and he had missed his brother's wedding rehearsal. The station was a single platform with a wooden hut and a café, which was open, but only just. A woman behind the counter looked surprised to see anybody, and she served them two cups of tea without being asked.

They sat at a table by the window for six hours. They talked about the interview she would not get, about the cities in which they had lived, and about a hundred things that had nothing to do with either of them. Outside, the light turned gold, then gray, then black. Felix told her that he had not been stuck anywhere for years, and that he had forgotten how much he liked it.

At eight, the woman behind the counter turned the sign on the door. "I'm closing soon," she said. "The train's at ten past nine. If you miss it, there is another one at six tomorrow morning." Noor nodded. Felix nodded. Neither of them moved. The second hand of the clock on the wall seemed to be moving slower than it should.

At five to nine, a distant whistle sounded, and the lights of the train came around the bend. Noor looked at the ticket in her hand, and at the suitcase by the door, and then at Felix, who was carefully not looking at her. She thought of the job she had lost, and of the life she had been rushing toward. Then she slowly put the ticket down on the table.

The train arrived, waited for a minute, and left again. Nobody got on it. Felix looked at the empty platform, and then he smiled and pushed the teapot toward her. "Another cup?" he asked. "Please," said Noor. And outside, the train to the capital gradually turned into a red light, then a dot, and then nothing at all.