The Midnight Train Part II

For the longest moment he stood frozen.  There were so many thoughts rummaging through his mind, so many emotions running rapidly with no place for expression.  Any other man would have left when the voice spoke from behind the door.  But not this man, not this train rider.  He had came there for purpose, to win back a love he never let go of, yet had walked away from and left.  It had been years, he realized that now, at least four years since he had last touched her face in the wee hours of the morning.  Still, he never imagined that she wouldn't be there.  He had so many times previously broke the hearts of women who loved him, just to return to them later, sometimes weeks later, to meet them with wide open arms.  This is how women love after all.  He knew that, knew that they would hold on to love long after their lover had checked out.  Four years, maybe that was too long.  He sat and contemplated knocking on the door again.  

Immediate feelings of loss turned into anger, and he fumed inside knowing he wouldn't have what he came to get.  He needed her to at least understand what caused him to return.  Why after so long his heart led him to board the last train to the East Side of town in search of the only women who moved him.  No other had compared.  He had convinced himself after meeting and sleeping with hundreds of women across the world that no one, not one had moved him like her.  She was his one.  She was the woman he had dismissed as an after thought and then awoke realizing he wouldn't live without her.  One part of him told him to move on, to turn around and carefully walk down the frozen street back to the train station.  At this point, a cab would be better, but still he remained, in the cold, feeling it's sting like the mark just left on his heart.  

For some reason, he placed his ear to the door.  He imagined a short whimper barely audible escaping her lips yearning for him.  Instead he heard the wind.  He knocked.  Then stepped back.  Shifted his feet from right to left, then left to right before shoving his hands inside his pea coat.  He looked above and noticed the light was still on in that bedroom.   He shook his head, lowered it in shame and knocked again.  He could hear the footstep thumps increasing in sound the closer they approached the door.  There was a hesitation.   The outside lamp blindly intimidated him and he squinted at first reaction.  The door opened and there she was, a shiny black revolver in front of his eyes.  All imaginative thoughts dissipated as reality threatened his last breath.  "Step away from my door step." the voice said sternly.  Shaken by the thought of getting shot, the train ride spoke "Wait a minute, I didn't meant to cause this type of trouble.  I'll leave now."  His facial expression half attempted to appear apologetic as if he never hated him just moments before.  He had hated the voice without even seeing his face.  He wanted to be the voice at that moment.  The train rider moved as quick as he could down the city sidewalk, slipping a few times, but focused directly on what was in front of him and not what was behind.  

He heard a door slam.  His world, completely lost.  At this point nothing he had earned or worked for during his disappearance was worth that reaction.  The Icy sidewalk.  It appeared before him as a warning to be cautious, had always been here throughout the entire scene as if it knew what the outcome would be.  He wondered why as he walked down the street, why he wasn't willing to die for love.  Why he hadn't challenged the man who stood before him, king of his abandoned castle.  She was worth fighting for, but he had fought enough battles of his own war that he couldn't see one with her.  Not his love, not the one.  He wanted to cry.  Confused like a lost soul, he wandered up and down the streets.  But instead of crying he chose instead to laugh inside.   He remembered the gun, the shine it had.

He hadn't used it.  the voice had pulled it, but didn't use it.  He gave him another chance, a chance to come back again and this time he'd be prepared.  He wasn't going to give up.  Not after that long ride through downtown, the six block walk over the bridge, and passing two hoodlums, a drug addict, and a sleeping cop on duty in his patrol car.  He was yearning for love and decided at that moment he'd get what he came for and finish what he started. 

By,

Michelle D. Jones