“Due to the delay, the train is running out of water. An unscheduled stoppage has been approved at your station, make sure to service it when it arrives”. The wireless device on his table sputtered. He confirmed that he will have the arrangements in place, and then hung up. The express train would arrive at 1 AM.

The station sat quaintly under a blanket of silvery fog, halfway up a forgotten hill, in a town that didn’t bother with the rush of schedules or the noise of urgency. The express was never meant to stop here. But tonight, it would. And as a station-master, he had to attend and ensure it is well-serviced.

He leaned against the brick wall outside his office. His assistant busied himself with the faucets, attaching the hoses to refill the water tanks of the halted train. It was a rare disruption to an otherwise predictable routine. He didn’t mind it. He preferred the small tasks and the methodical quiet of it all.

As he was waiting for the train to arrive, his recent past flooded his thoughts. He had chosen this life — or perhaps it had chosen him — after the woman he loved had left him to chase a future that didn’t include him. That break-up had not just ended a relationship, but also had fractured something deeper. As he struggled with the routine in the same town without her, he took the transfer no one else wanted, moved into the modest railway quarters behind the platform, and let the years grow over him like moss. It had been three years like this.

He often wondered how they got together and loved each other in the first place. He was a romantic, a dreamer, often getting lost in things that never mattered in real life. She was ambitious, career-oriented and wanted all the success she could achieve. He fantasized about trains as a kid, and chose his career in railways just so that he could watch them every day. Something she always despised about him, his lack of aspiration, naivety about life and his obsession with trains that added nothing to his life. Yet, those years with her were like a trance. She eventually had to break it somehow, and she did just that.

His assistant raised the green signal and the train heaved itself forward. As his assistant made his way out of the station, he himself turned to lock up the office — and froze.

A woman sat on the bench near the far end of the platform.

Slim, composed, a small handbag by her side. No luggage. She hadn’t been there before. He was certain of it.

“Excuse me,” he called out, walking toward her. “This isn’t a regular stop for this train. You must’ve gotten down by mistake.”

She turned toward him slowly, with the kind of calm that matched the misty air and the placid milieus.

“I know,” she said. “It wasn’t a mistake.”

“You meant to get down? Here?”

She nodded. “Yes. When the train stopped here, I knew I had to get down here.”

“Well, you are welcome,” he said, unsure if he was amused or unsettled. “But this place barely has a timetable. And no trains until well into the morning.”

“That’s alright. I won’t be leaving on a train.”

There was a pause. She didn’t look lost or confused. She looked sorted, assured. As if she knew what she was doing, and why.

“Still, planning to stay the night?”

“Maybe. Depends on how the conversation goes.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What conversation?”

“This one,” she said, as if it were obvious.

He studied her now. Her voice, her choice of words — something about them made his chest tighten. She spoke like someone he once knew. Like her. But this woman looked nothing like her — a different face, a different age, even. Still, the rhythm of her pauses, the gentle drop of her tone, always the hint of enigma when she spoke — it made his skin prickle.

“You’re not from around here.”

“No one’s from around here,” she said. “That’s why it works.”

“You seem to know a lot about this place.”

“I looked into it. Before I boarded the train. I’ve been doing this research for a while now.”

“For what?”

“To return something.”

He frowned. “You mean, like… lost and found?”

She reached into her handbag and removed a bundle tied neatly with a purple ribbon. She handed it to him.

“What’s this?” he asked, taking it hesitantly.

“You’ll know.”

He sat down on the bench, untied the bundle — and felt the air go out of his lungs. Inside was a brown, leather-bound journal — his journal. Every day that she was away from him – for work or visiting her family – during their days together, he wrote into it. Page after page, his handwriting stared back. Thoughts, confessions, pieces of poetry he never showed anyone. Moments they had shared. Arguments. Laughter. Silence. He never intended anyone to read the entries, especially her. He knew she frowned upon this creative, idealistic side of his. And yet, she has probably read it all.

His fingers trembled. “How do you have this?”

She tilted her head slightly. “Some things find their way back. When it’s time.”

He looked up sharply. “Did she give this to you?”

She only smiled — a soft, tired thing. “Let’s just say… I was asked to deliver it.”

He stared at her, heart pounding. “Who are you?”

But she didn’t answer. He turned back to the journal, flipping through the pages in disbelief. When he looked up again — she was walking away, towards the woods on the far end of the platform and into the mist. She was already a blur by then.

He stood up, hurried behind her to the platform’s edge, but there was no trace of her. Nothing. Just fog, settling like the curtain closing after an act.

___________

In the pale morning light, he sat motionless in his room, the journal besides him on the coffee table. A restless emotion had kept him awake all night. Fear? Hope? Trepidation? He couldn’t nail it.

A little after dawn, he picked up his phone and dialed the last number he had for her.

After several rings, a male voice answered.

“Hello?” He instantly knew it to be her brother.

“Hi, I… I’m sorry to call out of the blue. I used to know… your sister. I was wondering if I could talk to her?”

There was a long pause.

“I’m sorry,” the voice said quietly. “She passed away. Three months ago. Car accident. She was driving to work with a colleague.”

The world stopped.

“I… I didn’t know. I’m so sorry,” he stammered. “How did it happen?”

The voice softened. “They both died on the spot. It was in the papers. If you want, I can send you the news clipping.”

“Please,” He barely whispered.

A few minutes later, his phone buzzed.

He opened the message. A photograph of a newspaper article in some far away city. Headline: Two Women Killed in Highway Collision.

The photos blurred into each other. His heart clenched. Her face — the girl he had once loved — was mutilated beyond recognition.

The second photo — clearer — showed the other victim. The woman who had come to his station.

He felt as if someone had punched his gut, taking all the wind out of him.

How is that possible? That woman was dead, he argued. And yet she had spoken to him. Delivered his journal. Disappeared into the fog.

He closed his eyes. Her words came back to him:

“Let’s just say… I was asked to deliver them.”

Yes. It was her! She had come. It was her soul, in a borrowed cloak. In another’s form. A borrowed voice. Because she didn’t want him to see how her face was mutilated beyond recognition? Or because she did not want him to know it was her? He wouldn’t know.

He opened the journal again, slowly, reverently. On the last page, something was scribbled in her neat handwriting that he instantly recognized. Something he had not noticed earlier:

These words were yours — and they will always live with me.

But now that I am gone, they must return home.

Please never let them go.

And as he touched the little, red heart she had drawn beneath those words, something settled in the silence of the room – the gentle weight of something unfinished that no longer needed finishing.

That evening, the express thundered through the station once more, on time. He stood by the tracks, eyes on the blur of carriages.

And just for a heartbeat — through the opaque glass of the last window — he thought he saw her, looking for him. Probably making sure he was alright. And probably never to be seen again.

He still had a lot of questions. But she was gone, forever.

If only she had a return ticket …