“Attention all Central--
“Attention all Central Station passengers. This is the final call. The last train of this evening will now depart.
“Attention all Central--
“Attention all Central Station passengers. This is the final call. The last train of this evening will now depart…”
He wiggled his motion sickness eyes open, exhausted, panting, but somewhat relieved to find his dry toes on solid orange floor tiles evenly threaded by fibers of calm gray dust bunnies. All the high-pitched hissing winds that had been shredding him to crumbs were inexplicably nowhere to be found. In its place was now a very familiar and stationary train platform.
For some reason, his ears had been ringing with residuals of Prudence’s low alto voice calling for his name seconds ago. It still was. But to him, this was utterly illogical, for she had no knowledge where he was heading, and as a muggle, she would have no means of following him to Hogwarts premises. He quickly discarded this frivolous possibility and focused instead on the abrupt change in surroundings in front of him, starting with the familiar orange floor tiles.
The familiarity was no coincidence. He was here before. It was definitely the same platform he was on, the place that ended it all for him, the juncture when everything inside him died, as he was waiting for her, the girl who had not showed up last year, when day became night, when he stood watching the final train of the night depart with his soul, leaving his lifeless body behind.
It was a reflex motion; his eyes succumbing to gravity and casting down was not unforeseen, given having just cross paths with such a nostalgic piece of memory. This was no different, except this time, he discovered to his saddened surprise as he glanced down, that his hand was holding a piece of recognizable blue parchment, bundled with a picture. It was her goodbye letter, less than ten words from her, and a portrait of the two of them during their happier times.
“Didn’t I tear these things and toss them into the train tracks? How can they come back intact?” he mumbled shakily.
It was not necessary for him to focus on the contents of the letter that viciously stole his life. Being less than ten words, he could easily recite them backwards with his eyes closed. Indeed, he closed his eyes. As he had many times before, her hasty words of goodbyes just bubbled out of his lips like a chorus of a lament played in reverse. On a quarter of a breath, it was swift and easy:
His tongue dried up to become sandpaper, resembling the parchment in his hand when he finished. He could do nothing, except ask himself how such brief and simple words could string together, either forwards and backwards, and still deliver so much damage to a person. Could it be the feeling of pitiful sorrow, as a result of seeing something with so much promise, only to end with a mere letter of less than ten words? Or could it be because the message of her note uttered a life-altering decision made without his input, one that left him with no choice, but to accept an ending to something that was not supposed to end in the first place?
He looked up the wall to search the perfect angle for his head. It was his silly way to roll his pupils upward. In the process, he noticed something was hanging directly over him on the wall, the clock of the train station.
He chuckled sardonically, as luck would position him in the exact shaded spot he once was, under the same crusty stubborn clock like the last time. It was the one with the dithering arms, to which he fruitlessly and foolishly begged to stop for him, the seconds to stop ticking away, in order to give her more time to arrive, but…
“Wait a minute!” he gaped at today’s version of the clock with questionable eyes, emotions debating in his stomach in all directions, trying to find west versus east. “The clock’s arm! It… stopped!
“Could it truly be? The clock had finally… fulfilled my request? What could this mean? What could all of this mean?” he asked as if there was someone on the platform to answer him.
“Have I… gone back in time or something? Am… I dreaming?
“Or… is it broken? But… then…
“This isn’t a memory!” he tapped on the solid wall and the popping vein in his temple. “This is real!
“Why have I returned here?”
At long last, he stabilized himself and asked the key question that matter the most, slowly trooping more at ease with the familiar settings that were also unfamiliar at the same time. With his eyes briskly absorbing the disjointed and untimely details, his ears joined in by alerting themselves to the tinkling melancholic bells, the cries of music from the station speakers, and the minor chords of the lonesome currents whisking through his hair. Everything blended seamlessly with the sound of a train whistle that kept on wailing delicately at regular intervals. As he figured, ahead of him was a train about to depart. Like the previous experience, no one was on the platform to entertain the last train. The platform was empty. It was obvious. There was no point for the train to keep on wailing, because everyone had already reached their destinations.
Suddenly, his feet could sense small vibrations from the orange tiles. His nostrils arose and bloomed to the feathers of an intimate scent as the air temperature behind him began to rise. He recognized the perfume immediately. The reaction was spontaneous, and it slowly pulled him around, to allow a pair of feet to enter his vision.
He was not alone on this platform after all. Someone had been standing behind him. In a heartbeat of wishful thinking, his eyes automatically decided to shut out everything that was immaterial. Instead, they zipped higher to reach their counterparts, only to find them nuzzled behind a thick page of long silky black hair.
In his wildest dreams, he had never figured he would reunite with her in the same place she once abandoned him in. He pinched the back of his hand, realizing this was real. She was real, and smiling too. He was relieved she was all right. But despite the good signs, something was different. Something was missing. He couldn’t tabulate. He quickly confirmed her features, and he substantiated her hair against the files in his memories. She looked healthy and radiant, compared to his disheveled state, but he couldn’t recognize her. He couldn’t return her smile. It was hard to reconcile.
She once said the most beautiful girl is a girl in love. Wanting to check more clearly, he inched closer crisply, but the emotionless mantra of frost behind her smile only became more evident with every step. He was walking towards a stranger.
He ought to celebrate. His legs should be propelling up and down in glee. He should be laughing like he had never laughed before. Surely it was a moment for happiness, but the tinkling melancholic bells, the cries of station music from the wavering speakers, and the minor chords of the lonesome currents would continue to interfere, preventing his dream from playing out perfectly. Like it was always been, all these sad notes dominated seamlessly with the train whistle that kept on wailing delicately at regular intervals. Together, they were now coupled with her nonchalant eyes, chipping away the remains of his energy.
However, he didn’t care, and he leaped into her, embracing her as tight as he could, but she felt foreign and unfamiliar. Holding her was like pressing a glass of ice water to the heart. The wailing train whistle sounded two long horns, seemingly trying to steal what was left to cheer for, out of what should have been a wonderful embrace.
Once again, he would shut them out, all of them, all these ominous signs. He would not have any of it. As brash as he was, he would hold his breath too, refusing to take in such heartrending air into his lungs, not knowing this would tire him even more. To him, all these unbearable somber syllables were irrelevant anyway. What was important was that at long last, his arms were finally around her, but he wished he could say the same about hers.
“Come with me… The train’s waiting,” she said wanly. Her voice sounded dusty, as if it hadn’t been used for a very long time.
“Where does… it go? Where will it… take us?” he tried to beam, but with an empty ribcage with no air, his was a crawling voice that was equally heartbreaking.
Without answering, she reached for his hand and steered him inside. The train, as empty as her touch, was waiting for them, allowing them to choose whichever seats they deemed proper, for there were no other passengers inside.
“Please sit down,” she guided as he maneuvered to the window and she proceeded to the neighboring seat next to him, mindfully leaving a thin layer of air between herself and him. Although they were sitting side by side, their lips were resting idly, electing for the messages of melancholic bells and station music outside to sparkle and dim, letting them do the dialogue for the two of them.
She gently broke the muted fabric, and pulled the folded parchment out of his hand, gazing hollowly at a piece of document from her previous life.
“It’s not your style to keep it so brief,” he teased painfully, alluding to her ten-word effort that changed his life forever. “I was expecting… a lot of metaphors… rain references from you… you know… everything about the trees and the leaves… analogies… you used to love…”
“You do deserve better…” she replied kindly. Hearing those words, his eyelids, having bore the weight of abandonment all this time, trembled decidedly lower.
“I should have met you in the train station… and explain. You… deserve that much… but I was… I… a coward… too afraid… selfish… to face you. In the end, this note was all I could come up with.”
He said nothing, but inside his head, he couldn’t help but agree with her assessment. She should have spoken to him before leaving on her own. He was certain they would have figured out a solution together. But he didn’t want her to sense his blaming thoughts menacing his mind, so he tipped his eyes down further.
No one was watching them as they sat reticently, odd for two people that had just reunited successfully after a long period of separation. Only the mystic windows of the train were shining on them, and oddly, they started to mist up in sympathy. As quick as it was, feelings of round glittering pearls began to form on all the glass panes. Too heavy to hang on, the glimmers sparkled down, cursively cascading to the ground, leaving behind beautiful tracks of lingering strands on the faces of the windows.
It was difficult to ignore the effigy of tears being crafted on the windows surrounding them, on top of all the despairing sounds. Nevertheless, he had not forgotten the ring, the last strand of hope in his pocket, but just as he was about to speak, the horn of the motionless train let out a long whistling sound in minor harmonic rhythms, foreboding a signal for last call.
“I’ve arranged to meet you here… in a similar looking train station. I hope this way… I can do it the right way… and give you the explanation you deserve… give this a proper ending… so you can move on with your life… and stop pursuing something… that had passed… its pinnacle…”
These were supposed to be words he never expected to hear. This was completely opposite to all his dreams. At this juncture, he was supposed to be choking in shock. After all, he had sacrificed everything in order to reunite with her, but surprisingly, he was just as calm as her. He couldn’t explain it. Perhaps the sorrowful surroundings had already spoken the inevitable answers he needed to hear, preparing him for the inevitable outcome. Or perhaps going into this, he knew all along this was not to be.
“I should have stopped pursuing you last year, like asking your teammates about you, and leaving you with the book… giving you all these ideas… and… the umbrella in Osaka…”
“You… were there?” he asked with the tone of a friend.
She nodded, “It was raining in bricks and mortars that day in Osaka. You were soaked to the skin…
“You… couldn’t see me… but… I could see you…”
“I might not have seen you,” he breathed numbly. “But I…
“I felt you…”
She turned away, her hair draping further down her eyes, “I… I didn’t want you to get all wet--”
“That’s funny,” he interrupted, his eyes flickering boyishly. “Back then, you used to… always pull me outside every time it rains. You used to like seeing me all wet.”
She quickly disciplined the conversation back, “I shouldn’t be leaving objects behind in the wrong world.
“But then again… maybe at the time… the fool of me… I actually wanted you to use it in order to join me…
“I realize my mistakes now, and I am truly sorry.”
She got up and wiped the pearls and mist off one of the windows. It was the first time he had a chance to see what was on the other side of the train. The skylines were a deep effervescent horizon dance, a look that rhymed like a poem, with colors of romantic wine, in stark contrast to how he was feeling right now. Through the threads of drifting vapor, he could spot a group of familiar shadows far below, rippling sadly, including an old man with a distinct white beard, wandering away with…
“Prudence?” he barked in astonishment with a sudden surge of energy as he stared at the image from below intensely. “How… and… Dumbledore?”
Moisture was shimmering on the windows again, followed by the same droplets of pearls that would sparkle down, obscuring his vision of the people he left behind, fading in front of his eyes. It was at this instant where he felt like his soul had departed from his body, running away and escaping. Perhaps this was the point where the pain was too much to bear, and he was convinced this was a mechanism for the body to shut itself down and shield the soul from more torment. But something was wrong. It was more than just a switch. The space of time was indeed twisting and bending around him, distorting all his senses. He found his body was not listening to his orders.
“Don’t talk. Just close your eyes,” she requested in an echo.
He could only watch from afar now. Like an audience member watching a movie in slow-motion, he could see himself close his eyes willingly while sitting comfortably next to her, as if his body was hypnotized.
“I now realize I should have let it end the way it was supposed to… at the train station. That’s why I must send you back…”
He wanted to object. He wanted his lips to shout out all the words he could to fight her wishes, but all he could do was stare helplessly at himself, sleeping motionlessly next to her. To add to his shock, he could see his lips were curling to form a smile, as if he was agreeing to her decision.
She nestled her hand into his sleeping hair, “I still remember… I once said to you… love is like raindrops… water drops… like the ones dripping off these windows right now.
“It’s not easy to break away. There’s always a lingering strand behind each water drop… but…
“I was wrong. It is easy to break free. It has to be, because it is the only way…
“Strong stem tender flower. You are… for sure, as tough as they make them, but your true strength is all the gentle dimensions you possess… like… the many layers of petals of a flower…
“That’s why you’ll adapt… just like I’ve adapted…”
The train let out a long mourning whistle, as a prelude that it would soon depart.
Her hand glided softly to his ear. He could see she was twirling him with her fingers. He wanted to seize her hand, but his arm was not listening. Soon after, his earring disappeared mysteriously.
“I finally managed to forget… all those yesterdays with you. But then today, I find myself… sitting beside you again…
“It might take more than a few… tomorrows… for me to forget everything that happened today with you…
“It might…
“But… I’ll adapt.”
She got up swiftly, “You will… you must… start a new life. You must adapt.”
He wanted to light firecrackers under his body to wake himself up so he could follow her out of the train, but it was not to be, and the door would close behind her, separating the two of them. He was impressed to note she managed to walk out of the train without looking back. But it was not like he could tell for certain, for the windows began to mist heavily once more, reducing his vision of her footsteps to a shadowy glow of whiteness on orange floor tiles. One more time, he commanded himself to wake up and ram his way out of the train, but his body continued in its dormant state.
Standing on the platform alone, she arrived at the spot where he once was, under the clock of the station. She was surprised she was not sobbing. Perhaps the contents in her head were indeed purged of him; she had adapted. She did forget about everything she had with him, because her mask of nonchalance held up astoundingly well throughout the ordeal.
She had brought a large packet of facial tissue with her, only to find them unnecessary; she didn’t have to use them. That was why she was not afraid to walk the last step, for there was one more thing to do. She had to throw his letter away, one he wrote last year but had no intention of sending. It was her last concluding challenge to her emotionless front.
She bravely retrieved the crumbled piece of parchment from her pocket that was tucked under the large packet of tissues:
My dear Yuriko:
Long time no see. How are you?
I haven’t forgotten your face, your flowing black hair, your touch, and your perfume. I haven’t forgotten our seasons together, our every second, every dewdrop, falling leaf, snowflake, and sunshine that were ours, that just keep replaying in my mind...
Her eyebrows twitched regrettably, her head shaking into a question mark at the scribbles of deep manic scratches that overlaid the paragraph she had just read.
“And here I am, thinking I am the one with the sentimental poetries and you’re the muscle bound git… when in fact… it is… so not true… not true at all…
“You are so much more…
“I wish… you’ll let people see that side of you in the future.
“I wish… I had been more like you…”
She resumed her reading, purposely choosing to skip to the sections he desperately wanted to undo. The tips of her long bothersome hair were prickling her eyes as she scrolled down, in addition to the strain from having to make out his words behind his violent scratches, his attempts at erasing his true words from the parchment:
…it will hurt even more if you were to find me, if we were to see each other again.
My pain of really wanting to see you but not having to courage to see you, the pain of wishing to see you but not seeing you, not seeing you again, ever again.
Your little vegetable dumplings, rice paper rolls, I promise, I promise you, I will never forget, never forget, never.
The concluding lines of his letter were becoming very blurry and they were quivering, but she was convinced it was entirely caused by the strain of struggling to weave out the words behind all those emotional scribbles of his. Hampered by his marks of deletions, she had no choice but to slow down her reading speed, one word at a time:
About the fact that you chose to leave me, I can only say I respect your decision, but I have to tell you, I really did wait for you that day.
You have to believe me. Please believe me.
I really did. I truly did, wait for you, that day.
Her fingers trembled slightly, her palm finding their path to the wall, tracing an image of a man’s shadow that had warmed the selected bricks here before.
“I know… you did. Of course… I believe you…”
In the future, when you eventually stop remembering me, remembering us, just toss the letter out the window to the winds, and let the rain wash away the ink, the words, and the memories.
Goodbye, my Yuriko.
-- Oliver Wood --
“You’re right. It’s time… to do… just that…”
The departing train opened its wings, giving birth to the first cloud of current. The orange floor tiles rumbled, and she readied his letter for its release. Her bangs, strand by strand, lifted away from her eyes as the wings flapped stronger and stronger.
Suddenly, a powerful burst of wind hurled towards her, even though the train had not gathered its speed yet. The sharp gust was aiming for her face, and it tore all her bangs off her eyes, revealing a set of reddened pupils that were now cleared of all obstacles.
With her vision uncovered for the first time, she spotted markings on the rushing train, a handful of large abnormal vivid shapes and patterns on one of the passing windows. She stormed closer to investigate just as it motored for more velocity, to discover that there were some disjointed carvings on the surface of the window, traced diagonally on the cloudy glittering cold mist, next to a burly handprint, with a set of what should be the smudged imprint of his gliding fingers…
CAUs i M if U R”
The draft strengthened as the train gathered its unforgiving speed. The words were all that she could capture because everything was happening so quickly, reminding her this should also the perfect opportunity for its release to freedom, but instead, her grip on the letter tightened like never before, as each alphabet from his misty message stomped into her eyes.
Perhaps it was innocent, but she found herself yelling and chasing for the train to stop. Perhaps she wanted it to stop just so she could answer his final question, but it knew otherwise, for it continued to race away from her.
Her screams gradually disintegrated into uncontrolled cries as she struggled fruitlessly to imprison what was left of the blazing train that was now just a faraway glimmer of headlights. Ironically, mistaking her command for rain, the skies would follow, draping the horizons and blinding her further.
In the end, her feet would fail her. No matter how hard she tried, wiping away the rain escalating in front of her eyes, it was no use. The image of the train was no more. The orange floor tiles settled down under her knees. In her hand was nothing more than a piece of blank crumbled parchment. Just like what he predicted in his letter, the rain would wash away the ink, his words and their memories.
What was left to accompany the rain was but the tinkling of melancholic bells, like glimmers of punctuation marks, chording through the wails of station music from the wavering speakers, and the polyphonies of lyrics sung by the remaining lonesome winds.
Dissonant, unresolved, and distant, it was the mournful sound of the train whistle, the low constant pitch vehemently trumpeting its way back to the station where she was. With its rhythms crisscrossing through the dazzling raindrops, the train whistle was determined to escort her one last time, like a final lingering call, resonating gallantly for miles and miles…
“……”
“Attention all Central”
“Attention all Central Station passengers. The last train of this evening has now departed.
“Attention all Central”
“Attention all Central Station passengers. The last train of this evening has now departed…”
“……”
“I’ll… adapt…”