She couldn’t remember why she came here.
The train station bustled, but she felt outside of that sense of purpose, alone. Two trains and a bus after her impulsive decision, and now she could no longer feel the gripping urgency that brought her. Instead she stood uneasily, suddenly hyper-aware that this was not her place, that she shouldn’t be here. She wondered how all these other travelers could stand the loneliness.
Overhead a speaker buzzed with a disembodied voice announcing that the 4:27 from Grand Central was delayed due to technical difficulties. She thought of a clockwork train, unable to move because it’s missing a tiny but vital gear. Such a small piece, hiding behind the wind-up dancers, just barely visible when she looked hard enough-
Someone pushed past her, and the memory slipped away. A clockwork train? She didn’t even know if those existed.
Why had she come here?
She made her way over to a bench, disconcerted by the feeling of panic rustling in her stomach. It had dogged her ever since she woke up this morning. This feeling like she was forgetting something.
Her phone buzzed. She pulled it out of her pocket and tapped the screen. In big letters it said, “Mike’s birthday party; Today 4:30 pm; Notes- remember the cottage cheese dip, it’s his favorite! :)” She looked blankly at the alert, then deleted it.
She flicked through her phone, looking for nothing in particular. She shifted the heavy music box on her lap to a more comfortable position. She dug through her bag for some gum, then changed her mind and put the pack back in. For a few minutes she played solitaire, before giving up and putting the phone back in her pocket. Immediately she took it back out and flicked through to texts. She touched the fourth one down, the only one she hadn’t replied to.
The text was from herself. From this phone, sent at five-thirty that morning. But she couldn’t remember sending it.
“San Vicente train station, 4:30 p.m, platform 2. Bring the music box.”
She closed out of the text and put her phone away. She shouldn’t have been there, no matter what enigmatic texts her phone decided to send her, no matter how restless her dreams were the night before.
She glanced up at the sign for platform two above her, then looked out in the crowd, and wondered if she was just imagining that the man holding a box and walking past her looked familiar.
