“You are holding up the train!” A man in a purple shirt confronts a woman at an open train door. She braces herself against the doorway. “My prosthetic is caught!” He orders her to step back. She pleads, “Please just hear me out!” He raises his voice again. “I said move right now!” She tells him he doesn’t understand.
Someone asks why he is treating her that way. “Stay out of this!” he answers. A short subsequent plea is indistinct. He dismisses it, saying, “That changes nothing!” A uniformed employee arrives, raises a hand and says, “Wait! Nobody move!” The final question is, “What is going on here?” The woman remains at the threshold.
The story continues with an imagined ending.
“My foot,” she said. “Please look down.”
The employee did. He called for assistance and held the doorway clear while his colleague came to help. The man in purple finally moved away. From three steps back, he could see the awkward angle that had been hidden by his own body.
Her name was Anna. Once she was free, she asked to sit on the platform bench. The employee stayed beside her while she checked whether anything had been damaged. Everybody had an opinion about what she ought to do next. She asked for a quiet minute.
The man waited near the timetable. Twice he opened his mouth. Twice he closed it. Eventually Anna looked at him.
“Are you waiting to say something?”
“I thought you wouldn’t move.”
“I told you I couldn’t.”
He nodded. “You did. I was too busy telling you off to hear it. I’m sorry.”
She asked him to fetch the bag she’d left just inside the carriage. He checked with the employee, retrieved it, and brought it back holding the handles as carefully as if it contained glass. Out of it she took a battered blue lunchbox. The lid had come loose in the commotion. A sandwich lay sideways against a slice of cake.
“Of course,” she muttered. “Jam everywhere.”
He offered tissues. That was something she could actually use. They cleaned the outside of the box in silence while the employee arranged the next stage of her journey.
Three weeks later, he recognized her on the same platform. He nearly turned away. Anna saw him and held up her lunchbox, now secured by a thick elastic band.
“Prepared this time,” she said.
He smiled, then stepped aside so she could reach the boarding point. He waited until she was comfortably aboard before following. They sat at opposite ends of the carriage. At her stop, Anna gave him a small nod through the window. It was the first journey they’d shared in which she hadn’t needed to explain herself.
