I was running and I couldn’t stop. I can’t stop, I told myself every time I realized my legs were aching, I pushed myself to keep going. Just a little more to my room then I could hide from the world. But would there be a world when I came back from hiding? There had been someone who had seen what I did, and didn’t say anything, I had run first though, and I wasn’t going to stop.


“Aunt Maggie!” I called up the stairs. She was still asleep and she had to drop my brother and I off at school. “Aunt Maggie, are you still sleeping?” I waited as the silence pressed against my ears.

“No, I’m up give me a minute,” she yelled to make sure we heard her.

She came out five minutes later with one shoe on, hobbling around the stair railing until stopping at the top to sit down. She looked a mess, her brown frizzy hair everywhere, a few grey hairs waved in places, settling finally on top. Her eyes looked to be sitting on top of purple circles.

“What?” she asked me. I was staring at her with an expression of boredom.

“I’m just waiting, like every other morning, to get out of the house on time.”


The car ride was silent, Maggie didn’t say much, only the sounds of the car on the road and my brothers music in the back seat could be heard. I looked out the passenger window, absentmindedly playing with the extremities of my curled brown hair. I just wished I had a car already, seeing as I just had my eighteenth birthday. I’m just working on saving up my money to buy a car. It sucks because I only get money from my job and I worked every other day of the week. Soon, I would tell myself, soon.

“I’ll see you after work.” We got to school now, I got out of the car before she said anything back at me. My brother almost hit me getting out of the car, then ran into me as he went to catch up with his buddies.

“Maddison!” I hadn’t walked five feet from the car before I was found. I searched the crowd, slowing down, causing someone to run into the back of me. We both said sorry to each other, and laughed a little. I continued to search, and successfully found my friend Sam and some of my friends walking towards me like an angry mob, except with smiles instead of frowns, fire and chants of rage.

“Hey Maddison,” Sam breathed. He was panting like he just had run a mile. Sam was like a little puppy or a shadow following right on your heels. Sam had dark brown hair cropped short, and bright blue eyes. He was good looking, and dreamy to all the other girls in the school and I was probably making them jealous, but it wasn’t like we were going out. Anyone could ask him out if they really wanted to.

“Katie, how was dinner with Eric last night?” I asked my best friend. She had just been invited to have dinner with Eric and his family, and she was really ecstatic on the phone last night at eleven. I told her I would listen in the morning, or something along those lines. I barely remember hanging up the phone.

Katie babbled on, holding hands with Eric as he caught up with her, Sam had his arm over me -breaking the others girls’ hearts- like he did every morning. We made conversation all the way to Lakeston’s front doors. Our group, the only large one outside the cafeteria, were walking past the posters and flyers about sports and events. Past all the couples talking about valentines day, and girls giggling as they wanted to find out who their secret admirers were. We went to the place where we hung out in the mornings and at lunch and formed a circle. We chatted about the weather, and what we were planning for the weekend. Sam stood next to me and waited to say something when the group went silent, trying to think of something else to say to keep the talking from stopping.

“Would you be my valentine?” Sam asked again for the third time this week. I hadn’t yet given him a single answer. It was outlandish to think of going out with my best guy friend. My mind says no, my stomach does somersaults saying yes. I mean what was I supposed to do? I didn’t know what to feel, because I didn’t want to get my hopes up.

“So….?” Katie encouraged me to answer. She already knew the situation, I had told her yesterday. Katie told me to go with yes, that would make us both happy.

I turned back to Sam, “yes I will be your valentine.” He smiled, and his smile lit up the hallway. He then whispered in my ear so that no one heard but me.

“Thanks, you just made my day, heck the rest of the month,” and kissed my cheek gently.

When the bell rang, our group dispersed and I headed for class, Sam walking with me instead of leaving me, we usually went separate ways.

The day passed in a blur, I even tried to make it slow down when lunch came around. It was just a bunch of noise all day and finally when I couldn’t hear anything for a little bit, it was uncomfortable, a dead silence after eight or so hours of yak, yak, yak.


It felt like time had stopped for a second until I looked up from my desk in my next class, and people started talking, finishing their conversations.

“Maddison, Maddison,” Matt was calling to me. I got up and walked over to him, practically bouncing out of his skin. He was another one of my guy friends, who I’ve known for a long time, but sometimes I swear it was like talking to one of the girls. “I heard you’re going out with Sam now.” Smiling big, so I could see most of his teeth. “Is it true?”

“Of course it is.” I didn’t give any details and I’m sure that was what he was looking for, but I’m sure he would go ask Katie or Analeigh. He gave me this look in his eyes, they were big, he really wanted me to dish on details, but didn’t push it anymore.

“Oh okay, just wanted to make sure.” It was a weird way to end the conversation, but I went back to my seat, and I saw him take out his cell phone.

Sam waited outside my classroom door, leaning against the lockers. The minute I saw him I smiled and pushed my hair behind my ear. He had caught me by surprise. Holding my hand, we intertwined our fingers and he traced lines and circles with his thumb on my forefinger. I was distracted by what he was tracing, that I didn’t realize we were by his car when he let go of my hand.

“Do you want a lift home? Oh wait,” he thought about a different answer. “Do you want a lift to work?” He looked down at me and I stared at his bright blue eyes, they were slightly squinting because it was bright, but I reached for his face to stroke his left cheek, down his jaw. He closed his eyes at my touch.

“Sure, I usually take the city bus there.”

“It’s no problem,” he walked around the front of the car, to open the drivers door. “I head that way on my way home anyway.” I opened the passenger side when I heard the click of the lock, and got in. It smelled of apples in his Charger. The seats were made of black leather the same color as the paint on the car. He put the key in the ignition, it purred underneath us, and he turned on my favorite radio station. I knew the song immediately and mouthed the words.

I thought about how much Sam knew about me, finding out a lot in the first couple months of our friendship. It wasn’t hard to talk to him it’s just I talked a lot to him. Kind of like talking to one of my girlfriends about what girls usually talked about with each other. I still had a lot of my questions for him, and it got easier now because we were going out.

“The dog place is on 15th street right?” Sam asked me, just now getting out of the parking lot. I nodded and continued to mouth the words to the next song in the play list.

I worked at the local dog groomers, Doggie Day Wash. I’ve worked there now for a couple years. I worked every other day of the week, doing something different while I was there. Tuesdays I washed and dried dogs, I didn’t cut the hair, I had to actually go to college for it. But basics were good for me to handle. Thursdays I worked the register and making sure the pets were ready for being picked up later at the end of the day. And Saturday was cleaning the tubs and sweeping up the hair left over from cutting and shaving the dogs hair.

We stopped now in front of the shop, and I gathered my stuff, opened the door getting ready to swing my bag on my shoulder.

“Do you want a ride after work?” Sam was leaning over to see me out of the passenger window. I hesitated, thinking of my answer. “Um, well yeah I guess I could,” mulling it over in my head, thoughts running in and out. Aunt, riding with Sam, work, calling my Aunt.

“Okay babe, I’ll see you in a few hours, call when your ready.” Driving away he waved his left hand out of the window, and now the word Babe was something stuck in repeat in my head. Sam usually said it casually around everyone, but I think he meant it this time.

Worked passed just like the school day, dogs barked in their kennels as they waited for their owners. I called Sam around seven thirty, telling him I’d be off in fifteen minutes.

Come on, Come on. I was waiting for the last customer to come through the door. She was standing right outside, all she had to do was walk the four feet from the curb. She was wearing a heavy coat with fur on the collar, it was just a little chilly out tonight, really no need for it. Her left foot, wearing a high heeled black boot, was stepping onto the curb, but she stopped to answer her phone.

I looked at the clock on the wall, I only had ten minutes left before I clocked out. I was being impatient because I really wanted to see Sam. I was starting to think of ways to get out early, one I almost went with. Just to irritate the customer, I would shut off the lights and go out the back. That could work.

My hand reached to the on/off switch, but with perfect timing, she shut her phone and walked the four feet to the door. I greeted her, checked her in on the computer, looked up the cost, then went to the backroom to get the dog. The Dalmatian was happy to see his owner and couldn’t wait to get the treat that waited in her hand.

Another look at the clock again, then out the front door window, the lady was trying to hand me money and I almost missed taking it. My mind was away, I tried to stay present and not be distracted. I rang up the thirty dollars, and handed the lady the change. I smiled and told her to come again. The second she was out the door I sprinted to it to flip the open sign to closed. Ran past the counter, to the kennels to turn the lights off and lock up. Coming back to the lobby, I reached over the counter to grab my bag and turn the lights off. Jogged the few yards to the door, got the keys out, stepped into the fresh air, stuck the keys in the keyhole and heard the clink of the lock.

As I turned I couldn’t see any car lights shining on the street. It wasn’t much of a busy street anyway, and the only light close enough was the red stop light a couple yards ahead to the right of me.

I looked down on the face of my wrist watch, the hands and dots where the numbers would be, glowed yellow-green in the dark. By this clock I still had 3 minutes. I looked right down the road where my school would be if I walked fifteen blocks. I looked left where Sam would come from, he said he passes my work on his way home. Or was it he passes my work on his way to school? Great, now I didn’t know.

I stared straight ahead to figure out which way he was coming, but as soon as I would see headlights I would be relieved. I hated the dark when I was outside. Not being able to see much was too much for me to comprehend, and I didn’t feel confident. In a small town, it was eerie.

I kicked at a rock on the ground sending it to the middle of the road, imaging what would happen if the tires of a car drove over it. But I heard something and came out of what I was thinking.

“Hey!” I looked to my right where my ears heard the unfamiliar voice. Someone was walking fast to where I was standing. I looked behind me, to see if there was someone else, but was crestfallen when no one was there.

Okay, don’t worry. What were all those moves my aunt talked about? Knee to the groin, that would make any man double over, then knee them in the nose once they were down to shove it into their brain. Or just stomp on their hand to break it.

I prepared myself, getting into a good stance to start. The figure was getting closer, dark jeans and a heavy sweatshirt. He had sunglasses on, and that might have given it away that he wasn’t going to ask for directions to a pancake house.

Still getting closer and all I did was ball my fists, pick which knee I was going to sacrifice for bruises, and stand there looking like a lost kitten.

“Hey,” he said again, a mere two feet from me. I froze as his hand came from his pants pocket and grabbed my hair, pulling it hard and backwards, so it exposed my neck and make it ache. He pushed my back so I was now facing the brick wall and he pushed me hard against it. It hurt my chest, and my left knee hit it hard.

He turned me around and slapped me. Right then I found my body, unfreezing, the adrenaline kicking in, he made me mad. I found my knee and that made contact to his crotch. He bent over like I thought he would, but his head landed hard on my shoulder and it felt like he had bit me, and I couldn’t reach my knee high enough to his face.
Cursing under his breathe I ducked under his right arm, he was holding the wall, and his left was holding himself. My bag had dropped to the ground by his feet. I dashed for it, but he was standing on the strap, as I reached he tried to grab for me again and his foot moved up slightly.

“Stop!” I yelled like an idiot, what good would that do? My hand was in the air like a traffic cop stopping traffic. But exactly the word I said worked. He literally stopped. Frozen in place, he didn’t blink and he didn’t breathe. I was shocked as I knelt there. I looked at my palm, it looked the same, and back at the stranger. He was still unmoving.

What had I done? Nothing made sense now. I didn’t know what to do or say, I just sat here staring in the face of this guy. I didn’t dare touch him, what if he tried to attack me again?

I noticed everything else didn’t look like it was moving either. The stop light had paused on yellow, the little wind that was blowing was gone now. And I couldn’t hear anything, the empty sound was pressing against my ears.

“Maddison?” Sam had pulled up now, the car was still running and he walked to my side. I was sitting on my knee and he stared wide eyed at the stranger and at me. “Maddison, what did you do?” he asked very calmly even though his expression didn’t match the look on his face.

I didn’t say anything even though I wanted to scream out, my mouth opening and closing but nothing coming out. My mind was blown at what I did. Sam cursed loudly, walked to the car opening the passenger door. But instead of getting me like I thought, he went to the stranger, touched him leaned back just in case he moved, then put him in his car. Walked around to the drivers side and before he left he told me he would be right back.

But the minute he left, the stop light changed and the wind picked up just like before, I felt a difference inside me, like a heavy power over me lifted. Right then I knew I couldn’t just sit here on the curb, I had to move.

I ran.

My bag hitting against my back every other step I took. For some reason after running a couple blocks, I didn’t feel a lot of anything. Not the pain in my legs, not the cold air stinging my face, not the bag hitting my back. I just tried to think about what was going to happen next. I was running and I couldn’t stop. I can’t stop, I told myself every time I realized my legs were aching, I pushed myself to keep going. Just a little more to my room then I could hide from the world. But would there be a world when I came back from hiding? There had been someone who had seen what I did. And didn’t say anything, I had run first though, and I wasn’t going to stop.

I saw my street coming into view, then my house, the black fence first, the yard then the whole face of the house. Everything looked the same which was comforting. I slowed down even more, just taking in the last bit of freedom.


“Maddison, you up yet?” My aunt called through my door. I locked the door last night, kicked my shoes off and crawled under the covers. I tried my hardest not to think about anything that happened, and I found myself waking up the next morning. When I did wake up I had the feeling of falling off my bed. And no matter what you do, moving to the middle of the bed or even sitting up you feel as if you would fall again.

I got out of bed dressed for the school day, grabbing my bag, as the door got knocked on again.

“Oh, you are up.” Maggie was looking around my room as if I were hiding something. “Come on I have to get you both to school,” turning around Maggie was still talking to me all the way to the kitchen. “I made you breakfast, well toaster strudel.” She rambled on about yesterday and not seeing me. I tried to stay present, but last nights incident was as fresh in my head as it was when it happened, it felt like it happened a year ago.

“Maddison?”

“Wh- what? Sorry.” Cr*p.

“Did you hear me?” she asked.

Obviously not. “No sorry, what did you say?” She stared at me before asking again.

“I wanted to know what you wanted for dinner, because we haven’t really gone out anywhere for a while, I just wanted to know. Are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah, dinner sounds good if we could go someplace, like a buffet or something.” We chatted about some options, I ate my breakfast, and my brother came and told us we were going to be late if we didn’t get a move on and leave in 3 minutes.

Driving was just the same, going through the town was good. Maybe I made everything up yesterday. Maybe nothing happened at all and I just needed sleep.

“Okay I’ll see you after school.” I got out like always, feeling normal. Cameron hitting me with his door as he got out like always. Walking through the crowd I noticed some people looked at me strangely but nothing major. I had almost reached the front doors before I heard my name being called.

“Maddison, hey.” Katie greeted me, but it was only her.

“Where is everyone?” I asked looking the way she had come, not seeing any of our friends. But we walked through the doors and toward our regular place.

“I have to ask you something.” Katie didn’t look good, I wondered what was bugging her.

“Yeah sure, go ahead.” I noticed also that we stopped walking.

“Sam said something this morning. About something that happened last night. About you.” My heart was pounding so hard, I thought I would fall over and faint.

I tried to say something but I didn’t know what. My mind was racing like a car on a race track. “What did he say?” I asked.

“I guess that you were getting mugged last night, and that you were trying to beat up the stranger. He made it sound awesome, but I want to know if it’s true, and by the expression on your face I think it is.” The mood changed then. She started to pester me trying to get details and such. I tried to make it sound like I knew what I was doing, but I didn’t want to stray too far off from what Sam said.

As we walked I told her things, people looked at me differently, like I committed a crime and just came back from prison. They stayed away from me taking double takes as I passed them. I kept my head down, wondering why it was taking long to get to our usual spot.

“Maddison! Good job, did he come back after you beat him up? Did he want more?” A hundred questions hit me in the face at one time. I tried to answer the ones I could hear first. It was hard, I needed a paper bag.

I heard the bell ring and walked away, I wasn’t aware that Sam was by my side with his arm around me.

“Oh,” I said looking up at his face. “Sorry I didn’t even know you were there.”

“It’s okay, I need to ask you some things later, at lunch. Sorry about this morning I didn’t know they would be like that. But, I’ll see you later.”

Third came soon, and ended quickly enough, I couldn’t even remember what happened in second. I tried to think, I wanted to know what Sam wanted. That seemed more important.

“Hey,” Sam greeted me. We walked to our lunch spot, and I noticed a lot of eyes on me; concerned, most of them, others seemed really relieved. We didn’t talk the whole way, he didn’t look at me either, but held my hand and lead the way.

“I need to ask a lot of questions from you. I don’t even know if I will ever get through them all.” He started, staring at me intently.

“Well, none of them are going to get answered if you don’t start,” I added. He smiled, bringing a light emotion across his face.

“I need to know why you didn’t tell me before that you could…” he whispered. “Stop time.”

“I didn’t know, I promise. I have never kept anything from you. What happened last night was something I didn’t know could ever exist. I was such in a shock, I mean didn’t you see me? I sat there staring at that d*** man trying to wrap my mind around what was happening.” I stopped only because Sam’s face was sad again, he didn’t believe me one minute.

“You’re really going to lie to me right now?”

“H- How could you think that?” People started looking at us. Maybe it was because my face was getting red and there were tears starting to form.

“You can’t lie about this. I mean I didn’t believe it at all the first time I stopped the clock. It takes me a lot of concentration to get the clock to stop for how long you had it last night.” He grabbed my upper arms hard. “Tell me now, tell me the truth.”

“I did, and you don’t believe me at all.” I yelled a little, getting mad. Most people could tell if I was lying and not very often would anyone second guess that. I pulled myself away from Sam. “You need to know that your probably not the only one in the world that can do special tricks.”

“Yeah, but I will be.” He turned around and walked away. I watched him the whole way till the end of the hallway towards the student parking lot. He greeted everyone else like he wasn’t angry at all. It was unfair. The worst part was what he said last ‘But I will be.’

I wiped my eyes on my sleeve and went to the girls bathroom. No one was in there, I was grateful. I took the second stall, dropped my things and sat on the back of the toilet. I wished at that moment to die. Nothing would make Sam happier, and I would be out of his hair like he wanted. But its not the answer, nothing can be solved but one thing.

“Maddison?”

Cr*p. “Yeah?” Katie walked in, and waited in front of the stall.

“You Okay?”

“No, Sam's mad at me,” I sniffed. “He doesn't believe me about last night. He basically told me straight to my face that he didn't trust me. This relationship is going down the toilet.”

“Maddison it's okay,” she was trying to say the right words as to not hurt my feelings any more then they were shot. “Can, can you just come out, lets go talk to him or something, its not good to hide all day in here. Please?” I had to really think about listening to her. What would it matter if I rotted in here or not? But I grabbed my things, slipped off the back of the toilet, unlocked the door, and faced my friend.

Katie smiled when she saw me. I know I d

“Attention staff and students,” I knew the voice. Sam's. “There is something you need to know about our fellow student Maddison Gray. Something happened last night, that most of you know, and if you don't know, she was attacked by a stranger. The thing is, after I arrived she was having a freak attack, and started to convince me she had super powers. That she could stop time without knowing she could. Of course that's not true and personally something should be done about it. So what do we do? Do we let a freak walk freely around the school? Who knows how many people will be convinced of this. Just do the right thing Lakeston.” The voice stopped and there was a sound as the intercom hung up.

All I could do was stand there in the bathroom with Katie looking idn't look my best, tears staining my face, my cheeks blood red. Before I could say anything, the bell for the announcements rang through the halls and in the bathroom we were at.at me. I felt nothing, I could barely stand. I could hear outside that the students were beginning to talk it over. Who knew they would take it so seriously.

“You okay? You need to tell me what’s going on.” She said.

I didn’t know what to say. My whole life was blowing out of perspective right before my eyes. What was I supposed to do? Was there any time left to do anything?

“I have to leave.” I mumbled.

“Okay.” Katie answered. I assumed she heard me because at that minute she was holding my wrist leading the way through the crowds of people in the hallway still eating their lunch. It probably wasn’t that good of an idea to leave the restroom because of the announcement that was made.

As we were walking, people were whispering about me, some that I’ve never seen before, some that were my friends, and the ones that could care less. All I could think of was people starting to follow us. I wanted to hide in the bathroom stall. With no one to disrupt me till I was dead. Katie lead me out the door, into the parking lot and to her car on the other side.

“Where do you need to go?” Oh yeah. Now I need to think about where I’m going and how I’m getting there. I can’t leave without talking to my aunt and brother, but the thing was, what was I going to say?

“Home, I need to tell my aunt. She might be able to think of something to do.”

Maggie was home, which was not expected, I was just going to wait it out then break all the news to her when she arrived home. Well sooner is never a bad thing.

Before I had walked to the front gate, Maggie had the front door open, a dish towel in her hands, I couldn’t even force a smile onto my face.

“What’s wrong Maddison?” She said as I walked, Katie was right behind me.

“She’s freaking out. Apparently something happened last night, and now the whole school knows, her boyfriend, well ex now, is forming some plan to get rid of her.” Well that was easy.

“What happened last night?” Maggie looking at Katie to answer, but it was me instead. I surprised myself.

“When I was locking up last night, I was waiting for Sam, he was my boyfriend, but now he’s pulling this crap on me.” I shook away the thoughts. “Anyway, there was a stranger running towards me, and he tried to hurt me and take me away. I fought him off for a bit, and I stopped him, and that’s when Sam arrived.

“Sam can stop time too, and he wants to get rid of me, he’s jealous and I don’t know why. He doesn’t believe me and he wants to be the only one.” No one spoke, just taking in the information.

“So you can really stop time?” Katie asked.

“Yes.” But it wasn’t me who answered, my aunt did. It was our turn to stare at her, and wonder why she knew this information already. “You always could, just you haven’t done it in a long time. The times when you did, they were only thirty seconds to a minute. When your parents were alive you were allowed to and that was when you were three. But it was only then, you did it a couple times, but you were really young you wouldn’t remember.

“As you got older, I thought you had just driven it from you and you were like everyone else. I used to be able too but I hid it from myself and eventually stopped. It was just another memory of your mother and me. We used to do it all the time to mess with people. If you can imagine, we were a little reckless back then.” She laughed a little.

“So, does that mean we have to move, or wait it out? I don’t want to drag you and Cameron in this.” I said.

“Do you think Sam will find you?” Katie spoke up after a while.

“Yeah, there’s nothing I can do till this blows over. I’m sorry I’m putting you through this Maggie.”

“It’s okay, we all have to do something we don’t like at some point.” She pulled me into a hug then released me to go to my room to get my things.

Katie helped me out, putting things together in a pile on my bed. I grabbed what I thought I needed, not knowing where I was going yet. I thought of many places out of state. Hawaii, New York. Maybe to a different country.

“Do you know what your going to do once you get where you’re going?”

“No, I just know that I need to get out soon. Before I get overwhelmed I need to take one step at a time. But I can’t just move at snail speed and wait it out. I do know I have family other places, it’s just trying to find them. Assuming they’re in hiding.” She nodded and continued to put things on my bed then in some bags.

“I have something for you,” my aunt said in my doorway. “It’s a train ticket, I thought you might need it, I called your cousin already, he’ll be expecting you in a day.” I accepted the envelope with the ticket inside, it being a little heavy most likely due to money, just in case I needed it.

“Thanks.”

After I had three bags by the door I was ready, I grabbed food also, not wanting to spend the money unless I needed to.

“Hurry we have to leave soon,” Maggie told me.

“Magg, why do you have the ticket already?”

“I was going to give it to you and your brother as a surprise, but this is more important.”

“Okay, well thanks. So how long will it take to get to the train station?”

“About twenty minutes, the train won’t leave till two.” I looked at my watch. I still had two hours.

“I think I have everything, and you can always send it to me.” I turned to Katie who was still silent, taking all this in, her best friend leaving.

“It’s okay, I’ll call and text you. I’ll be back someday, don’t worry.” I gave her a big hug.

She came with us to the station, I tried to make the atmosphere in the car normal, and turned on the radio, but it was one of those days where all they play is sad songs. There was really nothing else to do but wait, and I decided to not notice the songs anyway.

We pulled into the stations parking lot, I was helped with my bags and we out them on a trolley. We walked through the doors, and found a ticket booth person to make sure where the train was going to pick me up at. We were told to go straight back, we couldn’t miss it, they would call overhead, and check tickets, plus the part that’s it one of the biggest trains leaving today.

Once we walked through, I saw the ticket number, and the same on the sign. I sat on one of the benches, putting my trolley on the side so that it was out of the way and looked up at my aunt and friend.

“We have to get back before your brother gets out of school, and so Katie can get home too. Call when you get there, you’ll be fine I promise. I love you.” Maggie gave me a hug and I gave Katie another. Before I could see Katie cry, she walked off, my aunt following her, she blew a last kiss at me. I sat back on the bench and watched as they walked away.

Feeling hungry since the breakfast I had this morning, I pulled out one of my snacks and enjoyed it. Since I had a long wait, I just played some games on my phone and listened to my music; low enough so I could hear the voice overhead when it was time to go.

“Attention, train 5763 will be arriving shortly, make sure your baggage gets on and that your ticket it checked before departure. Thank you and have a good day.”

I made sure the ticket number matched what was said by the ladies voice. 5763, 5763, okay good. I waited, looking both ways down the track. But before I saw it, I felt and heard it. It rumbled, and blew a horn. Then it crawled into view stopping in front of me.


I grabbed all three bags off the cart and waited for the doors to open, holding my ticket ready in my hand. As I stepped onto the train, handed the person my ticket, he smiled and pointed me through another set of doors. I picked a spot, put my bags on the luggage rack on top then sat down. I looked out of the window, and waitd for the train to start. I didn’t know what I was going to do for a while when I got where I was going. I guess living in the moment till things settled.

The train moved then, I looked at my watch, 2:00pm on the dot. I put headphones back in my ears and watched the countryside come and pass behind me.