Sophia

A tear rolled down his wrinkled cheek as he began his well worn walk down the busy train platform. How many times has he passed the same faces, in the same poses, the same weather, the same smells, sounds. Everyone here, on their personal little journeys, repeating over and over again. The young blond boy next to the light pole had something different this morning! Could it be. How he hoped for it. A sign? Perhaps his collar was turned up, or folded differently, his fuddled mind was no longer sure of much. Repeated details all blending together. All the rest seemed the same. Everything the same. The shape of the clouds, the gusts of wind, the wisp of cigarette smoke from the tattooed girl standing too close to the edge of the platform. The crackled announcement for the coming train over the PA system. 

That fateless announcement.

Everything exactly the same, each and every morning. Over and over again. All would be gone in a blink of an eye, a painless flash. At least the tattooed girl may welcome it, he ruefully thought.

His permanently decrepit and broken body, frozen in time, poked him with aches and pains of age in a thousand places, with each shuffled step as he gripped his zimmer frame and shuffled through the crowd. The same people gave way to him with grace, and the same grudgingly moved, too distracted by the exact same diversions. A walkman here, a glam mag there.

Through his watery eyes he caught a glimpse, just a twist of hair caught by the sweet spring breeze, glittering bronze, or so he had decided after seeing it so many times, exactly the same way. It was her, his love, his beating heart. Sophia, the girl that shattered him to pieces on this very day.

He shuffled with a little more energy. He knew it would not make a difference, but the love in his heart drove the muscles and bones to move with more purpose in the final steps. How many times would he need to relive this moment, to have his soul torn apart by her hazel eyes, and her cute freckled cheeks piqued by her morning coffee. Just a few more steps.

There was always the last obstacle, the intransigent old woman with the dark scowl on her brow. The blood racing through his ossified arteries with a rare virgor. Maybe it was only the final flush of his short and endless life. Just the old lady to get past now. The nameless hag with her downturned mouth in a permanent sulk. As he ground his way right to the edge of the platform to pass, she glared at him as he would lightly bumped her wheely bag with his zimmer frame. “Oofpassa” she growled without giving way. He would, as every morning not yield and push on by. forcing her bag back to make way for his frame. The exchange would gain the attention of the immediate circle of people including Sophia. Oh how it would shatter his heart to see her expression turn against him in this most trivial of exchanges. Then he would turn and stare right into her eyes. His very life force would pause in that immaculate moment as her features would soften and a small smile would break out at the corners of her mouth and turn her almond eyes to that melting pose he would forever be tormented by.

The last time he would see her, over and over again.

The squeal of the train brakes grew louder as he continued to stare into her face, but now she had become uncomfortable, her expression unsure of what to make of this strange staring old man. He liked to entertain the idea that there was a spark of recognition in that last moment that he was her love, her soul mate, the one that she declared her everlasting heart to under that majestic waterfall in south america on that magical full moon night with the living jungle as their spiritual witness. The wild jungle where they had met and immediately fell in love.

The front of the train crawled right by him pushing a gentle warm gust of wind. This was the highlight of his mornings. That gust of air would toss a lock of her hair over her eyes which she would sweep away with the most enchanting flick of her elfin hand. The gesture trivial, but so potent. It was all he had left of her. Its simplicity entranced him. It captured with an enchanted purity her true nature: carefree, strong, soft, independent, yet always in awe of him. He hardly believed he was deserving of such adoration from this goddess. His own personal Goddess. It would melt his heart whenever he saw that reverence glisten in her eyes. They truly were meant to me together for all time, of that he was sure, but she was snatched away from him at the pinnacle of their love. Just as their hearts filled with plans for their long lives together, just mere months after that night under the falling water. In a fit of passion and love they had pledged every living second from then on to be lived for one another. An earth shattering love that could not be denied, gripped them both. Was it just the passion of young love. A long way from home, their lives confined only to what they could carry on their backs, never quite knowing where they will lay their heads down together each night. Every morning filled with adventurous trepidation. Danger or awe and wonder around each corner. The delicious unknown. He hated those doubts. They made him feel dirty and unworthy.

Now his heart was trapped in that height of passion and love forever more. Was it a dark curse or a glittering gift? He tormented his years without an answer. All those long years tormenting himself unable to relinquish that promise till age robbed him of all facility.

Any second now she would look down, fish out her ticket, and shuffle past him onto that train, the faint scent of her hair as it passed only centimetres from his crooked nose. He would shut his eyes in that instant of ecstasy from that sweet flash of her fragrance. The scent which would become his one special symbol of her. In its wake, a fresh tear would roll down his wrinkled cheek, bitter and resentful. He could not stop her, stop the train, stop the old lady, or stop anything. Fate had etched into its record this event for all time. Unmoving and permanent. No remorse or consideration to the rending asunder of his whole world.

The train would hum away leaving the platform empty. Empty except for the old man gripping his zimmer frame, head hanging down from his thin neck, a gentle sob would shake him as he picked his head back up and miserably shuffled away to the bus station to return to his apartment with the faded paint, broken TV, and plastic mess tray delivered each day by the carers. He did not care any more and wondered why they did.

An ancient newspaper, pages fingered far too many times lay open on the kitchen counter. A coffee mug stain, decades old, smudged some preening personality into a deformed circus oddity. Below it was a chaotic image of managed metal, smoke and flames in newsprint monochrome. A dry narrative describing the end of life as he knew it followed, a derailment and collision with a freight train carrying flammable fluids, the first carriages of the passenger train engulfed in a fireball and utterly annihilated. His love exterminated in a flash fireball of fate. How could it have been so. He spent years in a delirious stupor drifting from drug induced denial, to fresh bouts of mourning. Life had lost all meaning, nothing could replace the chasm rend deep into his heart. Suicide was constantly on his mind, but he knew if by some sweet twist of fate, he were to be reunited in the afterlife, she would not approve of the path he took to be back with her.

Years went by dowsed in drugs and vacuous hedonism. He tempted fate to take him away from his pain, but could never take the last step. Then as decades passed with no purpose or achievement, his faculties slowly began to fade and fail. Arthritis and shingles beset him like the shadows of winter, with patient certainty. Then he had some falls which his aged and abused joints could not recover from, but suggestions of a wheelchair, he could not accept. A tortured and painful shuffle with a zimmer frame is all he permitted himself. There was an appropriate masochism which comforted him in his blanket of pain. A voice in him insisted that when he finally reunited with his love on the other side, she would approve of his sacrifices, penance to properly deserve their uniquely pure love into eternity. In those days of bliss together, they were sure nobody had experienced what they had found. It was so easy to believe that their love transcended anything anyone had ever experienced. That Mary herself could not have felt such love for her baby Jesus. Their mushroom hazes in the jungle had melted their souls into something greater than any two could ever achieve.

One day at the supermarket, a trolley in place of his zimmer frame. It was always a dangerous skating act with wheels possessed by some trickster, ready to launch his support in any direction. That thrill was toxic, invigorating. Death by shopping trolly, the thought tickled his twisted imagination. The trolley, filled with some ointments, soft foods and other off the shelf comforts, behaved a little better. He approached the checkout at which point he noticed an elegant man of nondescript age take position behind him. Black hair slicked back, strong cheeks and chin, smooth shaven with sharp black eyes. Exquisitely dressed but somehow unassuming. In a silky deep voice he said,

“I feel your pain. It has eaten you from within. Right to your very skin”

The old man turned now to better study him with his failing eyes. “You have no idea sir” was all he could think of saying.

“Oh, but I can, and do.”

“Do we know each other?” the old man ventured as he squinted in deeper study of the strangers face. He stared into the strangers unflinching. Something lay deeper behind their inky darkness. Something unnatural.

“No, but we should. For I have loved deeply and lost it all to cruel fate as well, like you have my old friend. The pain we feel cannot be drowned out. It smoulders in our hearts. Each beat like the pump of a forge’s bellows feeding our hot pain”

The old man winced with a renewed flush of bitter memory for his lost Sophia. A tear welled up in his old eyes. He could no longer hold the stare and turned away.

“What pleasure are you getting from tormenting an old man then? You are cruel to the extreme.” The old man mumbled, wanting the uncomfortable exchange to end. He turned back toward the cashier, but the colloquy was not yet over.

“I can wash all those bitter years away and reunite you with your love, Sophia” the stranger said with silky promise.

Who is this stranger? How does he know me, and know of my long gone Sophia. Nobody but me remembers our special love. What is this trickery?

“What do you mean?

Who are you?

And why do you toy with an old man's bitter past?”

“Grip my hand tight”, the elegant stranger extended his smooth hand out. The old man, confused, complied before contemplating where this would lead. The grip was strong and smooth. A power radiated from him which the old man could not define or deny.

“Look into my eyes and say her name as if I were her. Pour all your love out into that one word. If your will proves worthy, you will be granted a chance to save her life”

The old man did as he was told. He propelled the entirety of his now tangled memory of her and said “Sophia”.

Tears now streamed down his decrepit face and a fathomless compassion overcame the dark stranger's face. They both shut their eyes and then released the grip. A cold emptiness washed over the old man as he opened his eyes to see nobody in front of him. To one side a young woman with her fully loaded trolley and a toddler in tow stared at him with intense interest, but the dark stranger was gone.

“Are you OK sir”, the young woman ventured meekly.

He could not answer or even move. A cold electric surge still coursed through him. He felt somewhat elated, but empty as well.

After the checkout and loading the bag which hung off his zimmer frame, he headed home. Something was wrong though, the modern building he would pass on the way home which was completed only some 10 years ago was gone, the old grand wooden house, surrounded by its wild garden which had stood there for as long as anyone could remember was back. If that were not jarring enough, all the cars seemed to be from some nostalgic reunion. He knew something was wrong when he passed an old telephone box on the sidewalk.

At home now, he could not remove the idea planted there by the stranger. That night went by sleeplessly, replaced with the obsession that he could somehow save Sophia and turn back time. As light broke a mission gripped him as has not happened in an age. He dressed and shuffled out early to go to the train station, the last time and place he could think of where he could reunite with his Sophia. As he made his way down the platform, the first glimpse of a twist of her bronze hair playing in the breeze froze him and dispelled all doubts about the dark man's promise.

But the sweet promise of reunion was poisoned. The struggle through the crowd in his decrepit state frustrated him and to finally be angered by the old hag obstructing his reunion corrupted the fantasy.

The next morning was a replay until he began to suspect it was not just a happenstance replay but the day was the same. The headlines newspaper cover at the kiosk unchanged, the configuration of the crowded platform. All down to the very last detail. The stranger had trapped him in a tormented loop. To savour a glimpse of his love and see her snatched from him each and every morning. And worse yet, the dark realisation that he was also trapped in time. Cursed to repeat this terrible day forever.

-

So as with all prior mornings, he dressed and shuffled out, and could not hold back a tear. The self pity was palpable, and he wondered how he could ever escape this endless fate. How cruel was the sweet promise, just to turn out to be such a wicked burden. This morning was like all the others, he wrestled through the crowd, saw the tattooed girl and even entertained the thought she was on the brink of throwing herself in front of the doomed train. He allowed the irony of what was to come amuse him. He even entertained the idea of letting her in on the secret, but thought better of it. It was all about another last look into his Sophia’s eyes. It would always be worth the painful excursion.

As he came upon the old hag, he bumped into her trolley bag and she turned on him, but today with a wide warm smile and an apology. He was so confused that he could only do one thing. He mustered the most respectful bow for her that he could. Something was happening that had never happened before. The train was approaching. He could hear it. He turned to face Sophia, and she positively glowed. She looked right at him with the warmest and most compassionate smile he had ever seen. She was deeply touched by the warm and caring interaction between these two old travellers. A burst of emotion overtook her, She came over to him and gave him a gentle kiss on the cheek. The expression was completely exaggerated and the old lady’s face showed a happy kind of confusion at the display. Others as well looked on with pleasant surprise

The old man burst into happy tears and mumbled without thinking, “thank you Sophia my love. You have given me the deepest gift anyone can make. I am now complete”. At that moment he used the zimmer frame as a fulcrum and pushed backwards into the path of the train.