The sound of the water on the rocks has become a roar in my ears. He gazes at me neither kind nor threatening. He makes no move toward me. We just look at each other. I want to ask him about the train but my throat feels constricted and incapable of speech.
“Look over there Lady,” he commands in a hoarse voice. Warily, I look and see the lights of another train strobing the darkness as it rumbles in this direction. “That’s the one you take,” he orders me. When I look around, the man is no longer crouching there. Instead, I see a lone figure in a white cap moving across the shimmering street in the direction of town. His pace is slow and he is bent over, as if carrying a great weight. Without turning around, he raises his arm overhead in a kind of salute.
The train arrives and I board just as I have many times before. It is much later that I realize I never thanked him.
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