Arts

Terminus

Train Terminal

London. Victoria.

There is a boy sat in the busy station terminal. Trains groan, buzz and squeal to life in departure while others arrive and expel a sigh of relief before drifting off into a momentary sleep. They wait. While they rest, weary and excited patrons of all ages, backgrounds and reasons clamber aboard, pack their luggage into the appropriate storage facilities if they have any and take refuge in their designated place for the next however many minutes their journey will take them. They wait.

Besides this boy, is sat a girl whose heart leaks free from her eyes. The very same heart that thunders like the hungry hooves of a thousand horses chasing one thousand splendid suns while simultaneous seeming to have come to a complete stand still as stagnant as death itself. This boy and this girl sit, embraced without touch and exchange words. She speaks of love and decision, desire and hope while he speaks only as his heart will allow him to, offering her his honest thoughts and feelings but knowing that they cannot quell the cardiovascular cyclone which runs rampant through her complex yet currently fragile mind. A mind made fragile buy the guiles of society and circumstantial expectation. A mind made fragile by belonging to a heart with such a magnificent capacity that is sadly shackled and held back from the very freedom of which it is capable. They wait.

Moments pass and surely they seem like fragmented lifetimes, which splinter off into countless directions never to be seen again. Seconds become minutes, minutes become hard to bear. The sounds of footsteps, broken conversations, trains coming and going, announcements and life routinely moving along unfazed by their presence both supply sanctuary for private words while conversely seeming to shine the brightest of spotlights upon their little show while a magnifying glass lurks behind the curtains just in case. The aroma or smell, depending on how you feel about the particular thing in question, of coffee, cookies, sandwiches and various forms of junk food battle for dominance of the airspace. He watches everything; it’s all he knows how to do. She watches the entrance and time. They wait.

 She arrives.

She appears almost out of nowhere and a steadily decreasing pace and pulls to a stop much like the trains around her but more gracefully and filled with more emotion. The girl sat next to him stands and waltzes towards the girl stood before him. They embrace.

Not a single word is spoken but everything is said. His heart breaks for them. Those few seconds etch into his mind while being carved into the fibres of his soul. He stands, a little taken by it all, and departs. He waits.

Seconds become minutes, minutes become an hour. He knows not what they say to each other but based on what he saw in that one instance, that one embrace, he knows that the moment they privately share in public is some form of beautiful nightmare which seems to last forever while viciously slipping through their fingers like grains of sand adhering to gravity’s law. It is done. The goodbyes have been said. The departure has been made. The boy returns to the area he sat before. The girl arrives. She sits next to him. She breaks and falls apart. He takes her in his arms, perhaps an attempt to literally hold her together in response to her emotional falling apart. Perhaps simply because he loves her. Perhaps to shield her from prying eyes. Maybe just because he knows it is what she needs. Maybe because he knows there is nothing else he can do. Whatever the case, he holds her. She cries. She speaks words that he can already see in her face and read in her tears.

Seconds become minutes, minutes simply disappear. Neither one knows how long they have been here, frankly neither one cares but her train is coming very soon. They walk to the barriers just before the platform, they embrace; she thanks him. There is no need. They wait. They embrace. They separate. They depart.

There is a girl sat on a train, going to a place she doesn’t really want to be.

There is a boy sat on a bus, thinking about what he has just seen.

I am that boy. That love, is real.

The memory of this moment is, I believe, one that will stick with me until I am no more. In this single, solitary embrace I saw two people unite and fall apart in love all at the same time. I saw a love so strong it is honestly a shame for it to not have the chance to grow. There is nothing to say this love would last but while it did, for however long that was, it would truly be something beautiful. I have been heartbroken before but I still believe in love and moments like this remind me why. There are few things on this planet more precious than love and it is not something every single one of us experience in its entirety or in its truest of forms.

I hope to one day soon be holding you in my arms, embraced in a single solitary moment that speaks of love in magnificent volumes. Not to those who happen to be around, but to us. A moment we can exist within, held in each other’s arms, yet we are able to cherish and appreciate from the outside looking in and know how intensely and how honestly we simply love one another. Out loud and in front of the world. Not because I need the world to know but because I love you and I need you to know.

Sometimes, love is so strong, so bold and so very real that you can see and feel it without even trying. You just know. One day, I will meet you. One day, I hope you will know.

For now, I wait.

 Jack.