Running on the train

"Ahem." Roger blinked. His eyes were focused outside on a point not visible to anyone on the platform. Past the run down building pretending to be a train station. Beyond the rows and rows of empty warehouses. His eyes shifted a little. In the reflection, the train attendant in a dark blue blazer and conductor hat stood behind him.

"We're going to be delayed by about 20 minutes," the train attendant said. The car was empty, except for Roger and his carry on bag in the seat next to him. The attendant kept his gaze forward, smiled curtly and then trundled on to the next car to the rear of the train, a clipboard filled with paper swung from his hand. Roger swiveled his head to watch the man disappear into the next car behind. He placed his hand onto his bag, spreading his fingers out wide over the worn leather. What was another 20 minutes? It's all going to work out. The knots in his stomach tightened.

He opened up his coat and pulled out a palm sized notepad. A dull wooden pencil lodged in the tangled spiral wire on the top. He tugged at it, freeing it from the springy grasp. He tapped it on the cover then flipped it open. The words on the page were barely legible even though Roger himself had scrawled them. Dates and times. He turned his wrist over, the face of his watch showing a second hand clicking slowly around in a circle. There's still time. It will work out.

"Oh goodness me! This whole empty car and they put us both together." The sudden voice broke the quiet of the car.

Roger jerked his head up. An old man sat on the bench directly facing him. He had on a flat cap covering a head of whiteness, a dark red winter coat made of wool, and a pair of gloves that looked strikingly similar to a pair Roger owned if not more weathered. Then there was an unfamiliar smell that drifted about. Roger could not quite place it with what was permeating the air though it reminded him of the many fuses failing at his parents' house. Maybe that was related to the delay? Roger shifted his body away from the old man. He fumbled his notepad back into his jacket and turned his eyes back to the unseen horizon.

"A 20 minute delay. Can you imagine that? With these new fancy trains you'd think we could leave on time. Just as well. I was actually late! Lucky for me!" Laughter lines around his eyes bunched as he smiled through his neatly kempt white beard.

He leaned forward. "Say, young man. Where are you running off to?"

Roger squinted and looked side-eyed at the uninvited travel companion. "I'm not running." Roger's voice barely audible in the quiet car.

The old man leaned back into his seat, patting both his knees with his hands. "Oh my! Didn't imply you were! I just thought with that nice bag you got there you were heading somewhere to clear your head. A weekend getaway. In the middle of the week. Lord knows we need those!" Roger reached over and pulled the bag onto his lap, clutching it tightly.

"I remember a time long ago in my life where I had a moment that was cloudy." The old man turned his head towards the window. "Much like today, even! Cold, no sun. Didn't feel like anything would go right." Roger put a little more focus on the old man. His face had a familiarity to it. Something just out of reach that was buried underneath the decades the man had seen. Maybe it was because he was another senior and all the old patients at the home looked the same. Just another helpless face who couldn't take care of themselves. Roger pulled his hands together, one thumb pressing hard on the base of the other, allowing pain to radiate. This is alright. This was the only way out.

"Had a job that was relentless, thankless. And a family life that was shit…oh gosh. Sorry for that. Old habits. Like smoking which reminds me, do you have a light?" Roger just stared at the old man then titled his head up a little to the **No Smoking** sign above the doorway. The old man followed his gaze to the doorway. "Oh right, right. This new craze of no smoking on trains. Where will it end? Terrible habit I picked up in prison. Fifteen years in! The world was so different after I got out." Roger pulled his gaze back to outside, letting some of the tension in his arms go. It was a different world. Did it need to be though? He didn't need to be different.

"Where was I? Oh yes! Running away! No, a weekend getaway! No, that hadn't happened yet. Yes, everything was falling apart. It was my lowest point. Which really wasn't as I look back at it now." The old man scrunched up his face, a sourness flowing out. "That's how life is. Have your ups and then your downs and then the more downs and even more downs. But then there's the ups again. Like that Viper roller coaster. My word that was a ride! Have you been on it?"

The younger man shook his head from side to side perfunctorily. The thought of riding a coaster right now added to the queasiness of his stomach. The coming rocking of the train car may also add to the discomfort. He's doing everything he can to get off this ride. The thought of the ride brought up a memory of eating caramel covered popcorn with his friends at the annual carnival. Then the scene shifted to the home, the air adrift with the unforgettable scent, him smiling seeing everyone snacking on the very same treat. He tried to shake the memory out, his head quickly twisting back and forth.

"Are you alright, son? Well anyway, I really did think that was the end, backed into a corner, with some lions circling around. Hyenas on the hill ready to clean up. They smell the fear on you. And let me tell you, jail ain't a smell you can shower off," the old man said.

Roger felt his shoulders all the way to the tip of his skull tense up at the second mention of his incarceration, a small headache developing. He closed his eyes, willing the pain to stop where it was. There was no way he was going to go to jail. He just needed to get to the city.

The old man took a long pause and tried to inhale. Roger noticed a raggedness to the old man's breathing. A sputtering. A series of sounds he heard one too many times before. And right on cue, the old man began coughing, a sound deep from his core.

Roger watched as the old man started to heave into the crook of his arm. The old man shoved his hands into his coat, rifling around, looking for something. As he pulled a hand out, a small canister arced up and fell to the ground, landing by Roger's feet. The old man doubled over as the coughing continued, trying to pull air in. Roger registered the familiar shape of an inhaler, probably a steroid. His wide eyes darted back and forth between the old man and the clear temporary relief.

He squeezed his eyes closed shut, fingers digging into the bag. Tears beaded at the edge as the weeks before all streamed into Roger's mind. Then everything coming to a cliff's edge last night. Anger and resentment. Regret. The story has repeated too often, seeing the old man wheezing, both arms gripping his sides, in what must have been immense pain. But every time, Roger did what was required of him, what he was told. Never because it was the right thing to do.

Roger pushed his bag aside and quickly grabbed the inhaler off of the floor. He scanned the laminated paper instructions on the side before popping the cover off. He lifted the device to the old man's hands and helped guide it to his mouth and ultimately his lungs. The old man depressed the dispenser and breathed in as best he could between the ever brief pauses between fits. Roger knelt before him, arms outstretched giving support at the man's shoulders.

"Are you able to breathe now?" Roger asked, his voice breaking with concern. The old man took one more hit of his inhaler and nodded. Roger stood backup and returned to his seat on the opposite side of the compartment, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.

"My word, thank you, son. I don't know what I would have done if you weren't here to help me. I'm not usually so fumbly with that." The old man straighten his back and breathed through his nose, like it was his first one. "It just takes one small thing to change for the better. A helping hand. Because it's the right thing to do."

An overhead speaker crackled out. "Sorry for the delay. We will be leaving the station momentarily."

Roger looked over at his bag. A leather one he found at the local thrift store years ago. His name etched on an oval brass plate. It has gone everywhere with him. It was the contents within that didn't belong. His neck slowly turned to look back outside. Outside the window, various station personnel ran by as train whistles and machine noises peeled through the air. His fingers firmly gripped the very worn arm rest.

"Don'cha have something you have to return?" The old man asked. The stress of the coughing had cleared completely from his face. Roger pulled the bag onto his lap. He faced the old man, beads of tears slid down his cheeks. Their eyes met really for the first time and there saw himself reflected back. The old man raised a corner of his mouth in a half smile Roger knew well.

"I think so."

He wiped his ebbing nose with the back of his hands followed with his fingers clearing the tears at the corners of his eyes. Roger stood up. Gravity took hold of the bag as he let his hand fall.

The old man gripped Roger's arm as he passed by. "It's all going to be alright."

"All aboard!!!" the train conductor yelled out into the train platform. Roger hurried out of the carriage and into the cool, sunless afternoon air. The old man scooted himself to the window seat and watched as Roger sprinted away.

"Better late than never, I always say."

The train attendant reappeared at the opposite end of the car. He scratched the back of his head. The empty car puzzled him. He looked down at his paperwork to double check there should have been one passenger in this car. The train suddenly lurched forward. The attendant stood his ground as he flipped through the clipboard.

He stutter-walked, trying to keep his balance over to the vacant seat as the train began the journey south. The attendant gripped the railing above the seats, looking over the area. There was an inhaler sitting on the bench. An unusual smell of ozone stun his nose. The attendant shook a shiver from his body as it wafted to his nose. Surely that must have been from the electrical issue in the next forward car was having. He bent down and snatched the device off of the seat, holding it close to his eyes, reading the printed label.

Roger T. Freeman

The attendant flipped to the printout showing passengers for the car. With his index finger extended, he absently scanned the page, quickly finding the only paying passenger. He tapped the same name. He scanned under the seats and in the overhead wire rack. The man shrugged his shoulders. It was not the first time passengers disappeared. Wasn't even the first time this week.

"To lost and found," he said. He put it into an inner pocket of his jacket, opening to the door to the next car, then went back to doing his every day duties.