Year 12s: what will be the first way you research your future options? >>

The train

I stand on the platform waiting. Watching. Counting down the minutes until-

A child laughs. I follow the direction of the sound. It comes from a toddler, no more than two years old. Prancing around, pointing at people, smiling. They smile back, engaging with the boy that will soon cease to exist. His mother picks him up tenderly, but he struggles and cries. She laughs and puts him back down. Pity...

I smirk.

I notice an elderly couple sitting on the platform bench, holding each other in a tight, warm embrace. They whisper affectionate words to each other. Declaring their love for each other, as if they were a pair of high school lovebirds, yet their faces show the years of hardship they faced and overcame together. How they would have loved to celebrate their anniversary that night.

I look around lazily, and spot two girls. Both wearing matching clothes and standing next to matching suitcases. They laugh about the adventures they will be having, what they will be doing when they first land. One says how she will sleep with at least five guys, the other gives her a disapproving look. They laugh playfully, only at the beginning of their adult life.

The train pulls up to the station, everyone gets on. Apart from me, I want to savour this before I leave for my next engagement. The doors close, and the train slowly picks up speed.

I smile.

I turn around and glide out of the station, through the screams of random people who I will surely meet another day....

**My entry for the TSR Short Story Competition**

Spoiler

(edited 8 years ago)

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