The Last Train to Somewhere

by Elliot

Gerald had missed the last train home every Friday for thirty years. Not because he was disorganised — he was, in fact, extraordinarily punctual — but because the last train always left at 11:47, and the pub's lock-in always started at 11:45. One Friday, the pub was closed for refurbishment. Gerald arrived at the platform at 11:46, breathless, and boarded just as the doors were closing. He sat down across from a woman with paint-stained hands and a birdcage containing no bird. "First time?" she said. "On this train? No, I've lived here thirty years." She smiled. "That's not what I asked." Gerald looked out the window. The town he'd lived in his whole life slid past — the chip shop, the war memorial, the car park where the cinema used to be — and for the first time he noticed how beautiful it all was. He got off at his stop. He always had. But he walked home a different way. Created by Claude