December 15th, 2019

-3°C, Stormy

  The cold air rushed into the station as the doors opened and closed every time someone came in, accompanied by their huge pieces of luggage. Amleth carefully inspected the different people coming into the station. Moms struggled with the mewling and puking child in their baby strollers. Seven-year-old elementary school children ran around playing tag and cackling. Scolding fathers bellowed. Amleth noticed that there were barely any old people around, except for the elderly couple that sat on the bench in the far corner of the room, gazing into shop windows already decorated with LED lights and red garments for Christmas.

  He tapped impatiently on his cold pumpkin-spice latte as he waited.

  Rat-tat-tat.

  The sound of the plastic lid, which could’ve supposedly been a recurring nuisance, somehow ended up as soothing. Amleth stared at his reflection through the shop window. Glaring back at him was a man in his early thirties, with stubble on his chin, for he hadn’t shaved for days. Dark circles also adorned the skin under his eyes－there was never a good night’s sleep.

He shifted his gaze and focused on the flurry of snow outside, landing on the window panels. The snowflakes swirled gently. Softly. Quietly.

He turned his eyes back to the door.

  Finally, the figure he had been thinking about for days－weeks, in fact－walked in, with her favourite beige fur coat. Amleth walked toward and turned to face Elia, who was as blonde as always, who had radiant skin as always, and who was as beautiful as always. But with tired-looking eyes－ones that used to be so bright whenever she saw him, but were now covered by an inexplicable darkness.

  “Hi,” Amleth whispered.

  “You look worse than I imagined,” she replied.

  Amleth laughed bitterly.

  “I thought so.”

  The fume and sadness on her face did not diminish one bit.

  “You called in to say you had something from my Pa,” Elia suddenly said, “Liz told me to come here.”

  Amleth tossed something out of his pocket.

  “Here.”

  Elia took the old stopwatch. It was painted gold, but the hands stopped ticking. She gently touched it.

  “Thank you,” she murmured.

  Silence lingered.

  “I think I’ll leav－”

  “Can I get you a coffee?” Amleth blurted out before Elia could finish her sentence.

  She was stunned for a moment, but gave in when Amleth’s pleading eyes got to her.

  “Sure.”

  They got comfortable in the armchairs.

  “You look thinner,” Elia stirs her coffee without looking up, “actually, no. You’re just more haunted.”

  Amleth chuckled softly.

“Really?”

  The thick, uncomfortable silence returned.

  As the two warmed up at the table next to the fire, it suddenly dawned on them that it had been a while since they could sit peacefully within one room without violently throwing insults at one another. The small ones don’t count. And now, it was time to sort things out.

  Elia finally looked up.

  “You know, you were once...a good guy, I guess. The you who was sweating and stinking after track practice in senior year, but running across the field towards me with your arms stretched wide open was way more attractive than the you right now. You were legit panting,” Elia laughed so hard that tears came to her eyes. “Those were the good old days, weren’t they. Disappointing how times have changed.”

  “So I came to explain! What really happened－”

  “No, you came to feel better. You always think your truth is so righteous. That’s f***in’ wrong, and it’s where the real problem lies, ” she spat.

  “I was an activist. My father died because of that corrupt system. I wanted revenge,” he shot back, “and I didn’t lie. I wanted someone to answer for his death!”

  “At the expense of mine,” she shot a glare at him.

  “I didn’t do anything, ” he muttered.

  “No, you didn’t. You did nothing, nothing indeed. You only hinted at my Pa’s name, didn’t you? No big deal.”

  “Elia, stop, ” Amleth pleaded.

  “No, I won’t,” she snapped, “what did you say back then? At the open mic event? Ah, yes, you told the world that the father of a close friend of yours, and I’m not going to go into why you even called me a freakin’ friend, ‘picks his cases to protect his image.’ You so innocently thought they wouldn’t connect the dots? How many judges do you even know in Grayhaven? What the hell was wrong with you?”

  “I didn’t－”

  “Oh, I’m sure you didn’t mean it. You only wanted revenge, isn’t that right?” She purred.

  “You mentioned that he did avoid certain cases!”

  Elia looked as if she had just been punched in the gut, hard.

  “Because of the political pressure, you self-righteous idiot. He excused himself reasonably. You think I’d be alive right now if he didn’t do that? You think we wouldn’t have been shot on the street when we went out on dates by some crazy-minded litigants if it weren’t for my Pa?! He had his reasons to avoid cases as a judge, and I thought you knew better!”

  Amleth swallowed. The flickering flames in the fireplace made the room too hot for a moment. His palms started to get sweaty.

  “You meant for someone to walk into the great fires you created, didn’t you?” she continued, voice steady. Maybe too steady. “You just didn’t care, not even a second, for who was burned.”

  The lights buzzed overhead.

  “My Pa died in silence, ” tears streaked her face. “Collapsed in his office.”

  “And mine died in handcuffs. No trial.”

  That was it. They sit with the two graves between them. It was an insurmountable barricade.

  “You know what the worst part is?” Elia says, standing. Her chair scraped the floor with a loud screech. “You twisted my words, added salt and pepper, set them free, and watched them grow teeth, all for this little revenge thing you have in your mind.”   

She left her spoon in her unfinished coffee. Amleth stared at it.

  I guess they did throw violent insults at each other. There undoubtedly was a**-kicking. But it was the best it could end, for both of them.

  Amleth followed Elia to the exit. Rain glistened in her hair.

  “Worst of all,” she adds, “you still think this truth you have makes you noble.”

  And with that, she walked off into the pouring rain that replaced the snow since who knows when.

Amleth watched as her figure disappeared into the night.

Those summer moments when they were young－the confessions, the tenderness, the memories－all formed an invisible force so large that they jeered and jibed straight at poor Amleth’s face. It was a punch to his already shattered heart, knocking him out of the so little air he had left.

Suddenly, the chill of the winter storm struck him right this instant, rippling through his fragile physique, sending quite the shiver. And he realized Elia didn’t have her umbrella.

Best of all, she didn’t need saving.

She doesn’t need a hero catching up to her in the rain.

  Elia’s spoon still clinked against the porcelain cup back at the café. The coffee had gone cold. The two chairs were empty.

  Amleth stared out the window on the train, third cabin, last row on the right.

  Worst of all, he still thought he did the right thing.

  Best of all...you know Amleth and Elia already.

  Hamlet and Ophelia, just caught in the storm of their own making.