The Departure On...
/The Departure On Platform Two
The train home from work was due in just over twenty minutes. Steve Robertson always found that he was a little too late for the earlier train, and inevitably had to wait for the later train.
There was only one other person on the platform waiting for the next train. She was in her mid-twenties and was wearing a red trench-coat, tied with a belt around the waist.
She had long dark hair and was smoking a cigarette. She was lost in thought and had a far-away look in her eye. Maybe she was wondering about making the earlier train too.
The next moment she was standing by the edge of the platform, arguing with a guy in a dark suit and tie. The man was shouting, his arms waving in exasperation. She screamed back at him.
Steve sensed they were lovers, there was something brutal and yet intimate about the way they were arguing. It was the way you clashed with someone you were passionate about, rather than a stranger over a parking space.
Finally, exasperated, the man stormed off, charging away down the platform for the exit.
The woman loitered on the platform lighting another cigarette, her hands trembling with frustration. A train came speeding through the station. At that speed the train clearly wasn’t stopping here. Roughly one train in three was an Express, and did not call at the station.
As Steve looked on, the next thing happened almost in slow motion. The woman in the red coat lost her footing on the edge of the platform. Before he could do anything she was falling, tumbling forwards, towards the track and into the path of the speeding train.
The train charged out of the station, unaware of the accident that had just occurred.
Steve called out and rushed to the edge of the platform. He peered down at the tracks, looking for the poor woman who had just fallen. There was no sign of the woman in the red coat.
He was still trying to figure out what was going on when he sensed movement beside him. He turned and stared in complete shock. The woman was now standing beside him smoking a cigarette.
She stared down at the rusty tracks, a sad look on her face.
‘It was an accident.’ she whispered.
Steve went to reply but she was gone and he was alone on the platform once again. One moment she was there and the next she was gone.
Back home Steve checked out online to see if there was any report of an accident at the station. All he could find was news reports from decades ago. There was a newspaper article from the 1970s. There was a death at the station. A woman had died after being hit by the express train. He was shocked to see the black and white photograph of the victim. It was her. It was the woman he had seen at the station.
The article went on to detail how she had been seen arguing with her husband in the moments before her death. Her husband had been charged with murder, accused of pushing her into the path of the oncoming train, after multiple witnesses claimed to have seem the altercation on the platform.
He had been found guilty and sentenced to death. He was hanged fifty years ago that very week.
By Chris Platt
From: United Kingdom