**Abandoned Platform**
On the deserted platform where trains no longer stopped, a man sat with a worn-out suitcase. His name was Thomas Whitaker, though he couldn’t say what had brought him here. His fingers fidgeted with an old flat cap, his face shadowed with quiet resignation, as if he’d surrendered to some unspoken call humming in his chest like the distant rumble of rails.
The benches, cracked with age, looked like the gnarled hands of time. A rusted clock above the platform had frozen at 4:47, as if refusing to move, leaving the moment suspended in the air. Flaking paint and faded graffiti whispered to the wind, and torn posters fluttered like forgotten letters. The station, nestled in the Yorkshire moors, seemed abandoned not just by people but by fate itself. And yet, the warm July air carried the scent of sun-warmed metal, dusty billboards, and something achingly familiar—perhaps youth, left behind like a lost ticket.
Thomas removed his cap, running a hand through his thinning hair, feeling the strands of grey. He gazed down the tracks, scars upon the earth, stretching into the heat-hazed sunset. They hadn’t vanished—just rusted—yet still they beckoned toward places no longer reachable. He wasn’t waiting for a train. Not for anyone. He’d come because he’d once vowed, “When the questions run dry, I’ll return.” Now, there were none—just a quiet, hollow ache, like the echo of a fading whistle.
Once, he’d met Emily here. She’d come to stay with her aunt in the nearby village, and they’d first argued over the last bottle of lemonade at the platform kiosk. Her laughter, bright as church bells, and the freckles dusting her face had turned his world upside down, like a gust through an open window. They’d sat on this very bench, weaving dreams: a cottage by the river, trips on vintage trains, a life they’d shape like clay. But Emily left—first for London, then farther, abroad. Letters thinned, calls grew colder, until silence swallowed them whole, their dreams fading like the posters on the walls. Thomas stayed—alone, like the last passenger on a platform where the timetable had long blown away.
He’d worked at the local factory, its halls thick with oil and metal, the air heavy enough to prop up the walls. When it shut, they barely made a sound—just took down the sign, let the gates rust. Thomas took whatever work came: hauling crates at the market, guarding the nursery, mending furniture for a friend’s shop. The village withered like an untended garden. Friends left, leaving only yellowed photos behind. And he waited. For what, he didn’t know. Like a traveller at a station with no trains.
The rain came suddenly. Warm, heavy drops drummed the platform, the suitcase, the old ticket in his jacket pocket. Thomas didn’t move. The rain felt like the past itself, murmuring: everything flows, everything changes, yet you cling to memories like a frayed rope over a cliff.
Then—a figure emerged from the station’s shadow. A woman in a dark trench coat, no umbrella, walking slowly as if unsure of her path.
“Excuse me,” she said, stopping a few feet away. “The train… does it still run?”
Thomas gave a faint smile, bitter and oddly tender. “No trains here. The station’s dead. Nobody waits anymore.”
She studied him, weariness in her gaze—and something else, familiar, like a reflection in a puddle.
“And you?”
“Me?” Thomas hesitated. “Just… remembering.”
Silence. Rain pattered the roof, the suitcase, their shared quiet.
“May I sit?” she asked softly.
He nodded. She settled beside him, her presence warming the chill. They sat, no names, no words to break the stillness.
Then, slowly, Thomas felt something shift—a loosening in his chest, as if unseen knots were gently undone. Maybe he’d waited for Emily in vain. Maybe it didn’t matter whose train came, if he never dared step onto a new platform.
When the rain stopped, she stood.
“I should go,” she said.
“Where?”
She smiled then—lightly, as if shedding a weight.
“Where I’m needed.”
A pause. Then:
“Sometimes, we’re our own most important passenger.”
She walked the sleepers, her figure dissolving into the dusk.
Thomas stayed on the bench, the quiet now different—not heavy, but clear, as if the station had finally breathed free. His shoulders, long burdened, straightened like wings he’d forgotten.
He picked up the suitcase, suddenly lighter, as if the rain had washed away old hopes. The station released him, no ghosts to cling. Stepping away, he felt the damp wood beneath his feet and knew—somewhere ahead lay another platform. Not for waiting. Not for looking back. But for living, fully, where every step loosened the past’s chains.
