Too Late

“What time is it?” I had asked the question for the third time, and for the third time, very patiently, the passenger sitting beside me had pointed to the giant clock that separated the inbound train tracks from outbound. The clock had just clicked three in the afternoon. The wooden bench began to bite my bottom, and I began to squiggle. Although the gentleman sitting beside me did not feel any bites from the bench, he was bothered by my squiggling. He lowered the newspaper he was reading, looked at me over his glasses, and then resumed his reading. I tried to warm my hands under my breath and by rubbing them together, but it only helped momentarily. The snow was drifting through the gaps between the giant iron beams arched over the tracks and connected to giant marble pillars on either side of the platform. Soon the tracks were covered in a white, fluffy sheet of flakes. Darkness began to descend and lamps, that hung at the top of each marble pillar, were lit. A young boy of about fifteen, with a wooden vendor’s tray hanging from his neck, was going up and down the bricked platform selling various essential items to passengers. I called him over, got a pack of cigarettes from him, and went over to the edge of the platform to smoke. Cigarettes never helped me in the cold, yet I smoked every time I needed warmth. Just like I gargled coffee whenever I felt the need to stay awake. I had lit my second cigarette when a young kid of about twelve came to the platform edge and looked at me with curiosity. 

“You shouldn’t be here kid, the smoke is not good for you,” I told him and waved him off to the bench where his mother in a red knitted jacket had fallen asleep. I reminded myself of my father. My father when he used to shoo me off from the terrace because he had to smoke. One day when I was at the bottom of the stairs and Father was smoking on the terrace, Mother asked me where he was. I told her he was smoking on the terrace and she ran upstairs. I followed her and from afar caught a glimpse of Father, as it seemed to me, blowing smoke on our maid’s face, and mother snatching them apart. In the days that followed, Mother wept all the time, father was silent, the maid was fired, and I kept trying to make sense of what I had seen. It took me seven years to understand what the “blown smoke” actually was.

“May I have your attention, please! The three-fifteen train from The Citadel has been delayed. We are sorry for the inconvenience,” The platform speakers announced and dragged me out of the smoke. 

The crowd, which had grown considerably by then, yelled their dismay at the speakers and eventually got settled in somewhat more permanent positions. The gentleman who I had left alone at the bench had gone back to reading his newspaper. But he wasn’t alone on the bench anymore. At a little distance but on the same bench, a young lady dressed in a crimson overcoat was sitting. Out of her wide-brimmed hat, her long hair cascaded to her bosoms over her right shoulder, like the flames of a setting sun. an old man with a long white beard was pacing the platform. His hands were tied behind his back, hidden under his gray cloak. On every pacing trip, near the baggage wrapping center, he would cross the conductor, who was also pacing. Every time they crossed the old man would ask, “any updates?” and the conductor would reply, “nothing yet Sir.” Shops had opened for business on the other side of the platform. A small coffee shop had the most patrons. A smaller bookstore next to it was a close second in the patron count.

When the shopping spree diminished, I went over to the bookstore and started browsing the front stall. Buried under all the new titles, I saw the spine of an old book titled The Dusty Duo. I excavated it from under the pile and in the process turned the neatly arranged pile into rubble. 

“How much for this?” I asked, holding the excavated prize aloft.

The vendor looked at me as if I had offered to pay him to slap me. “A dollar will do,” he said.

“That’s it? A dollar? Clearly, the world no longer values great literature.”

“I only sell for profit, Sir. And beyond that, I don’t bother my head with value. The book you hold was donated, and no one has even looked at it, not even for free. The way I see it, I am making a profit of a dollar.”

I paid the man a dollar without arguing further. He knew not that for an undear price of a dollar, he had given me a glimpse of the childlike love I had once felt for my father. In Fact, I felt as if I had robbed him. When I was a kid, Father would read me a new mystery solved by the Dusty Duo every night before bed. Later when he left us, I could never bring myself to read any of these books. I gave up reading altogether. I didn’t even read any of the many letters I had received from my father over the years after his leaving us. Mother always asked me to forgive him for what he did; however, she did not know my reasons for not reading the letters. For some time I thought I hated Father because of what he did to Mother. Then after some more time, I was not sure. Every time I came close to opening one of his letters, a fear rose inside me. I always feared that Father would apologize to Mother for what he did to her, but not to me for leaving. The letter I finally read was the one that told of his arrival. Mother had passed away by then, and I feared he would follow her soon and after that reading, all of his letters would have been pointless.

When the giant clock struck 5 pm, most of the passengers had left the stations. Maybe they had postponed their journeys, maybe they had received news that their loved ones will be arriving on another day, or maybe there was a secret reason I knew not, but by that time only four people remained in my sight. The gentlemen on the bench, the young lady who sat near him, the employee at the luggage wrapping center, and the conductor. I sat down flat on the ground almost near the edge of the platform, took out a deck of cards from my coat pocket, and started arranging them into the shape of a small house on the ground. Everyone around me, except the gentleman on the bench who had started to read a book by then, stared at me curiously. A rare gust of wind knocked the cards down to the ground every time my house was near completion. I turned my back to the tracks to block the wind, but none can block the wind if it decides to come. Eventually, with a little haste, I completed the house. I looked at it with triumph in my eyes, then stared at it and waited for another blow of wind to knock it down. When the giant clock struck five-thirty, hidden from my mind, only visible in my peripheral vision like a glimpse of a distant storm, the train that was delayed, whizzed in like an angry wind and blew my little house to pieces, scattered all over the platform. I got on my feet like lightning and began to scan every passenger that came out of every door of the train. I had no idea how my father looked, or how I was supposed to recognize him. Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Mr. Wendell Scott?” someone asked in a low voice.

“Who is asking?” I replied as I turned around. The hand belonged to a young boy of about 19.

“Son of Rendell Scott?” he asked.

“Who are you, may I know?”

“Jered . . . Scott.”

“Are you here with my father?” I pushed him out the way and scanned the platform anxiously. “Where is he?” I continued.

“Can we please talk somewhere else?”

“NO! I don’t know you, and I don’t wanna talk to you. I will only talk to my father.”

“I am afraid that’s not possible anymore.”

“Why?”

“Your . . . OUR father died last week.”