Noname @ 6Teen

She took the last sips of the hot coffee fuming in the small white cup, then turned her eyes to the big clock hanging over the quay. Her ticket in one hand, she paid the bill and left the café where she had waited for over an hour. She was about twenty years old and had a slim face framed by flowing hair. She was going North. The station, the grey dullness on the walls and the faces awakened memories that started spinning in her head, clashing into one another in the confusion of an already distant past. Nostalgia overwhelmed her like rushing water on dry sand.

She got in the train and chose a seat. As the landscape started to reel by, images, flashbacks invaded the compartment. A handle, the steamy window, suitcases piled up above... somehow, all had a mark. Alone, she contemplated the low and leaden-colored sky and she realised how much she had missed that light. A thin drizzle was floating over deserted plains spotted with tiny houses in the distance. She liked red bricks, they reminded her of the primary school across the street long ago. Time had passed by, sharp and cutting like rails. She got hungry and felt like thick sandwiches stuffed with salad and chicken-mayonnaise. The snack bar was on the other end of the train, so she went down the corridors swaying on her feet along the rhythm of the wagon. On her way, she walked past a man seated by a window, leaning over a guitar. He was probably trying to tune it but the noise of wheels and steel was covering the sound of his instrument. She couldn't see his face but noticed the man's size, his broad shoulders, and this short sighting stung her painfully inside. She had a peculiar impression, like being unable to identify a familiar smell or getting lost on the way home...

Back to her compartment she switched on her walkman. Just at this moment, the door slid open and the guitarist sat in front of her.

_"Hi" he said in English. She removed the headphones and smiled back at him. "Does it bother you if I practice a little?" he added after a short pause. He sounded American.

_ "Not at all, I love music" She thought of asking him why he had followed her but the words stuck in her throat; she was enjoying his presence. He softly scraped the first chords of a song. "It's been years since I haven't played one of those songs. I was a real fan." Rain was pouring down profusely on the frozen ground and the evening was slowly gnawing the late afternoon luminosity.

"For years I kept an old worn out book with all their songs, I used to carry it around wherever I would go, then one day, it got too heavy and I gave it, to a colleague." The student remained silent, thrown back into her own memories. "You see, things have an influence on people." He put his guitar down next to him "They're like sponges: they absorb words, atmospheres... entire lives, and when you touch them, all that substance spills on your hands." The long nails of his right hand attracted the girl's attention.

"He must play classical pieces too" she thought casually. His brownish eyes intrigued her as well. The man she had loved was older and had the same eyes, the same chin. Except for the stranger's bushy beard and the haircut, they looked alike... They shared a certain type of manliness.

"Strange resemblance" he thought inwardly, smiling at her. Maybe talking about it would lighten the weight pressing on his chest. Showers had yielded to a foggy night.

_"Funny, you remind me of a girl I used to know years ago."

The girl cast a side glance at her watch "three hours left"

_"She was very innocent looking, there was a sort of freshness about her face. I liked the way she talked to me and the way she listened... I can't remember what instrument she was playing." He looked at his guitar, silent, daydreaming. "She wanted to be loved like a woman but I just couldn't give her that; it was way too serious for me." Upon hearing these words, the girl gave a start. "Why? What do you mean?" she asked.

Uneasy, the man looked outside the window at the landscape drowned in darkness. He seemed to be talking to his own reflection.

_"I never understood what she was looking for. All those feelings, her way of shifting from extreme to the other after we broke up... All this almost scared me. We were in Holland when it happened and I can't help but think about it." He sighed nervously.

_ "I know how you feel" she said "the last time I was on this train, I was in love and he was there with me..."

_ "When I married the woman I was dating at that time"

The girl interrupted him with a sarcastic sneer

_ "I wanted both and ended up picking the most convenient to please. I'm divorced now."

_ "Ah" she coolly commented. With this man sitting in front of her, she could remember the pain she had felt and she grew cold and confused. Similar features, the same age... yet, his story remained strangely vague and impersonal.

_ "Why are you going to Amsterdam?" she asked.

_ "I'll be playing the guitar in a band, what about you?"

_ "A student exchange" a pause, "the man I told you about wanted to meet me there five years later. Maybe I'll see him, who knows."

The strong lights of the station illuminated the platform and the two strangers waved each other goodbye. The man disappeared in a tram and the girl got in a taxi, but a peculiar impression lingered inside of them before melting along the streets.