She is sitting
and she
she is waiting
for a train that will
never come.
the wind off the machine, wraps itself around her,
a hug in her mind.
Someone cares.
It passes.

The sun sets over the trees, waving its last farewell (at least for today) as she sits. She waits on a bench, at the Faradey Train Station. The rusty green paint of the bench desperately grabs onto her clothing as she stands. As she leaves the bench, she sighs. That sigh, as it leaves her throat, does not disappear with her breath in the cold air. It echoes, it floats- like a song. It bounces off the walls, and through the hallways of the train station, until it reaches him. Him, he is Charlie. He is a man. Not a boy, but a man. That man Charlie heard that sigh, the slippery, velvet, broken sigh, and he knew. That was the last sigh that she would ever breathe.

Charlie, our Charlie, was not a smart man. He learns nothing from the hundreds of people whom he meets everyday, handing him their money. He gives them their train tickets. Charlie learns nothing from them, and yet he still knows too much. He knows too much about himself, and too much about her. So there, when he heard that sigh, Charlie decides. He decides that he cannot let that sigh be all he knows about that girl. Yes, that girl he already knows too much about.

Charlie jumps, he jumps from his chair and runs through the empty lobby, through the silent hallways. His footsteps are amplified in the silence. He runs so loud, and so clumsy. But nonetheless, he runs to her. She is still there, but she is not there at all. She is so young, so lost. So lost that her eyes do not even see. They are glazed and sad and empty. She does not turn to Charlie, but instead he turns the girl (yes, the girl, the young girl) to him. His callused, worn out hands grab her cotton dress sleeve. His strength overpowers her will to be alone, and after he turns her to him, he pauses. A single moment passes. “You are here,” the man named Charlie says. “No, no I am not,” says the girl, “I left a long, long time ago.” Charlie looks into her eyes that are not there, and he understands. He closes his eyes and turns around. He cannot look into those milky, empty crevices anymore. He lets her go, and he walks away.

Charlie was not a smart man.