The One I Choose

Okay, so waking up on a train platform in the middle of the night isn’t ideal, but I’ve certainly ended up in stranger places, that’s for sure…

There’s no one else around; just me, a suspiciously clean looking bench, and a vintage-looking train that seems to be posing for a postcard. No pigeons, no PA system screeching unintelligible announcements while everyone runs around like headless chickens trying to get to their train, and certainly no explanation for why my last memory was eating cold two-day old Hawaiian pizza in front of a half-charged laptop.

Then this guy steps off the train. Tall. Polished. Wearing what can only be described as “Victorian Chic Conductor.” The kind of man who might offer you tea while silently judging your entire existence.

He looks at me and nods. “Leah.”

“…Hi?”

“You’ve died.”

I blink. “Excuse me?”

He checks a pocket watch, like we’re in some TV miniseries and not what I’m increasingly certain is either a dream or a very elaborate prank. “Heart failure. Peaceful. Sofa-based.”

“I knew that pineapple tasted like betrayal.”

He lets that one slide. “You’ve been granted a choice, which is rare. One person, someone you know, can take your place. You’ll go back. They’ll go… here.”

He says here like it’s the local corner shop and not the afterlife.

“And if I don’t choose anyone?”

“You stay dead.”

“Wow. Okay. No pressure.”

He gestures to the train. “You have one hour. Choose wisely.”

I glance at the train, then back at him. “Do I at least get snacks on board if I die? Mini pretzels? A complimentary existential breakdown?”

He doesn’t laugh. Tough crowd.

“If I really am dead, why me? Why do I get this choice and not everyone else?” I’m not really expecting a response from him, he’s clearly not feeling particularly chatty, but I just need to put the question out there.

“Am I some kind of morally average person? Just self-aware enough to suffer through the guilt for the rest of my life but not noble enough to refuse the offer?” I laugh, bitter and thin. “There are saints who’d say no and monsters who’d say yes without blinking. And then there’s me, stuck in the middle, cracking jokes while the universe hands me a loaded gun and asking me to pick a target. Why am I the one who gets to play God for this one terrible choice?”

As expected, no response comes so I start with my favourite method of getting out of trouble: deny, deny, deny.

“No, see, this isn’t not possible,” I say, holding up both hands like I’m explaining basic maths to someone who’s clearly flunked out of logic school. “I was on my sofa. I was halfway through leftover pizza and binge watching a stupid reality show. You don’t just die mid-slice without some kind of warning, a bell or note or…. something” I laugh again, albeit a little stilted and nervous. “This is a dream. Or food poisoning. Or one of those vivid stress hallucinations, which, honestly, would track.”

I stare at the guy in front of me, willing him to suddenly break out into laughter of his own, confirming it’s all an elaborate hoax. Maybe the pineapple was drugged? That happens, right?

After nothing changes, I try to work around the system instead.

“Okay,” I say, extending a hand towards the conductor like I’m brokering a new peace treaty. “What about someone I only technically know? Like, do Twitter mutuals count?”

“No.”

“What if it’s someone who’s actively bad for society? You know, like people who spoil TV shows in group chats or those that take the last doughnut?”

Still no smile. I’m throwing gold here and he’s giving me museum curator energy.

“I don’t suppose I can trade in a few Facebook acquaintances?” I ask, throwing my arms up in the air. “Like, five mediocre people for one life?”

“No,” the conductor says, clearly unamused. “One person. Known personally. Meaningfully.”

“Rude,” I mutter. “Pretty sure my barista and I are spiritually linked.”

“Look,” I say, “I’m not trying to be cruel. I’m just trying not to be dead. There’s a difference.”

He gestures again, one of those slow, patient moves that says I’ve done this a thousand times and you’re stalling like they all do. The train looms behind him, long and silent and deeply uninterested in my banter.

I sit back down on the bench. The wood is warm. That’s weird. Death shouldn’t be cosy.

My brain is doing this annoying thing where it skips right over the “oh no I’m dead” part and goes straight to logistics. If it’s a dream, it won’t matter anyway, no-one will every know and if it’s a prank, well, I guess I’ll owe someone a deep apology and maybe some chocolates.

One person. Someone I know. Someone to die instead of me.

I go through a mental list of co-workers. Elaine from accounting? She never returns emails. But then I remember she fosters dogs. Damn it.

My ex, Jeremy? I mean… tempting. But I did break his heart, and that feels a little vindictive. Also he makes really good cakes now. That shouldn’t be punished.

My dad? The thought stops me cold. No. Just, no.

I think about him. For exactly half a second.

Not because I don’t care but because I do, and that’s the problem.

He’s not perfect. We’ve gone months without talking, more than once. He doesn’t know how to say “I’m proud of you” unless it’s followed by advice on applying myself and making the most out of opportunities.

But when my car broke down last winter, he drove three hours in silence just to sit in the cold with me while we waited for the tow truck.

He doesn’t show love like a Hallmark card. He shows it like a man who’s terrified of saying the wrong thing but still shows up anyway.

And that’s enough. It has to be.

He stays off the list.

Also, never mind all that, somehow it feels worse essentially committing patricide too, rather than casual murder.

“You don’t make this easy,” I say, glancing at the conductor with a frown on my face.

He raises one eyebrow. “It is not meant to be easy.”

“Oh, so you do have emotions. I was starting to think you were just a reanimated train schedule.”

Nothing. He just checks the pocket watch again.

I sigh and lean back, staring up at the too-perfect night sky, the stars twinkling away peacefully.

One name.

One person I doom so I can keep watching dumb shows and forgetting to water my plants and saying “we should hang out soon” and never meaning it.

What a stupid, awful gift.

And the worst part? A small, shameful part of me is already trying to seriously decide.

I start going down the list again, slower this time, less sarcastic.

Samantha, my old college roommate? She was always borrowing my charger without asking, but she also donated a kidney to her cousin. That feels like someone who should not be smited by cosmic trade.

Jared, the guy I dated for six weeks and ghosted because he clapped when the plane landed? Okay, he’s in the maybe pile. But still. He has a dog. A bulldog, I think. And bulldogs don’t deserve to be orphans.

I hate this.

I make an actual “Maybe Pile” in my head.

Not because I want to, but because when someone tells you you must choose, your brain does what it has to.

It’s amazing—disgusting, really—how quickly I start assigning value to people, turning people into columns: pros, cons, likelihood of universal redemption. She’s kind, but forgettable. He’s decent, but he never listened when I talked about books.

There’s no one evil in my life. Just people. Flawed, lovely, annoying, kind people.

Every time I land on a maybe, I flinch.

And then I flinch again because I didn’t flinch hard enough.

It’s like a moral spreadsheet, and I was never good at Excel, or decisions.

“You could just let go,” the conductor offers, almost kindly. “Many do.”

“You gave me this option, don’t go getting all judgmental on me now. What would you do?”

He doesn’t answer, which I take as a sign I’m still annoying him, and honestly? Good. If I’m going to be making a soul-crushing choice, the least I can do is make someone else uncomfortable.

Then I think of her.

Joanna.

My best friend from childhood. We haven’t spoken in years, not because we had a falling out, but because we just… stopped. Life happened. She moved, I flaked, we forgot how to reach each other.

But I remember her laugh. I remember the night we watched horror movies under a blanket fort and ate stale popcorn. I remember her holding me together when my mum passed away.

I also remember the photo I saw last year—her, standing in front of a small bookstore she opened. She looked so happy. Fulfilled. Alive.

And yet… a part of me—ugly, quiet, persuasive—thinks: She’d understand. She loved me once. Maybe she’d be okay with it. It’s not like she has a dog or, you know, a husband and kids. She’s also achieved her dream already. She could finish on a high.

I sit with that thought like it’s a lit match in my hand.

The conductor clears his throat. “Five minutes.”

I swallow the lump in my throat. “Do you ever get used to people doing this?”

He doesn’t answer immediately. Then: “No.”

We sit in silence.

The train hums faintly, like it’s waking up.

I say her name.

I whisper it, barely louder than a breath. I hate myself as I say it. I love her as I say it. And then it’s done.

The conductor nods. “Understood.”

The train door opens wider.

“Wait—” I say, panic flaring in my throat. “Can I change my mind?”

He shakes his head, looking at me with what looks like pity in his eyes. “It’s too late, you’ve made your choice.”

Suddenly, the platform stretches, just slightly, unnaturally, like I blinked and the world forgot its measurements. The ceiling above ripples like water. My breath fogs, the temperature having dropped dramatically. I pull my jacket around myself tighter.

The train pulses once. A sound like a sigh, or a guitar string cut loose.

I feel a tug in the centre of my chest, like something inside me knows what’s about to happen before the rest of me can catch up.

And then, for just a blink of time, I’m not on the platform anymore.

I’m in a bookstore. Her bookstore. Shelves stretching too high, ladders floating upward into impossible rafters. The smell of ink and oranges. Joanna is there, turned away from me, humming some song I can’t place, but I know she used to sing it while we washed dishes as kids.

I try to speak, but nothing comes out.

She looks up. As if she heard something. As if she felt something.

But she doesn’t turn around.

The train horn blares.

The shelves dissolve.

And I fall.

I wake up gasping, like I’ve been held underwater and just broke the surface.

Same sofa. Same dim flat. Same half-watched reality show playing on the laptop. I sit up slowly, heart racing. My phone buzzes on the table. A news alert.

I already know what it’s going to say but I check anyway.

‘Local Bookstore Owner Dies in Freak Accident’. Damn that was fast, I thought it’d take at least a few days.

The photo they use is a little too bright. Her smile too wide. It doesn’t look like a death photo; it looks like a memory trying too hard.

Joanna.

My stomach drops into a quiet, endless free fall. I close the article, but it doesn’t help. I already read the details.

She was walking near a construction site. A freak collapse. No one else hurt.

Of course.

It had to be neat. Cosmic trades don’t leave messy edges.

I go to work, I answer emails and I eat toast that’s mostly butter. The world doesn’t know what I did. That I’m here because she’s not. That she’ll never know why her chapter ended early and mine got extended.

No one asks how I’m doing. Not really.

Because, to them, nothing happened other than a tragic accident of someone I used to know.

Days pass like receipts printed too fast. Thin and forgettable. I try to cry, but it never quite lands right. Like my body is buffering grief it can’t process.

I make jokes at work that get polite laughs. People tell me I seem more grounded lately. More present.

I smile.

They don’t know I’m haunted. Not by ghosts, not really. Just… a truth too ugly to say out loud.

She’s gone.

And I’m the reason.

A week later, I walk past a bookstore—not hers, of course. Some chain. But the smell of paper hits me so hard I have to stop.

The cashier looks at me funny. I buy a book I don’t want, just to feel normal.

I carry it home like a penance.

---

One Year Later

The cemetery is small, tucked behind a park. I find her stone easily—it’s new, clean, the kind that doesn’t quite belong yet. Someone left flowers. Not me. I don’t deserve that ritual.

I kneel and pull a folded note from my coat pocket.

No name. Just:

“I’m sorry. I hope your last thought was a good one. I hope I make this life worth it. I don’t know how, but I’m trying.”

I leave it under a rock.

Then I walk away—alive, and knowing that sometimes being spared doesn’t feel like grace.

It feels like debt.

As I reach the gate, I glance back once.

The stone is still there. Still hers.

And I’m still here.

Alive.

Grateful.

And haunted—just enough to remember that some choices aren’t about right or wrong.

Some choices just follow you home.