Cadet at the city of Metropolis' prestigious military academy, Dusk Lancaster on the outside was a man to envy. Yet, behind his uniform, a beast having lost his compass thrived on the thrill of bloody duels, whilst the orphaned shoeshine boy he once...
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February 23rd 549 days to the miracle. Earlier that evening, at the train station.
The day's languid sun disintegrating into shreds red and orange shades, slowly drifted beyond the volatile evening sky, bearing upon the city a louring atmosphere.
At quarter past seven, the lampposts standing at shoulders of the streets brightened, the schools and offices closed their doors, and the gears of traffic set in motion in what appeared to be the onset of the second rush hour. And so our city, this two-headed city of Janus, turned her faces in chorus, as the hectic fever of day had subdued giving way, to another kind of fever, the sensual pleasures of the night.
Attention, passengers: the outbound train to Borough 3: Kingston, Borough 4: Queenston, Borough 5: Rookston, departs platform 7 in ten minutes. Stand clear.
Just as the public announcement was made, the bevy of brisk commuters gathered about the gates, their eyes looking up the passenger information display, skimming through the train schedules to each of the nine boroughs, indexed on the suspended screens.
Borough 1: Old Town Borough 2: Plaza Delta. Borough 3: Kingston. Borough 4: Queenston. Borough 5: Rookston. Borough 6: Princeton. Borough 7: The Port. Borough 8: The Heidentor Grounds.
Tired of waiting for the habitually tardy train—the line connecting him home wasn't known for its punctuality—Dusk made it through the rabble of disorderly passengers, to a nearby newsstand; and though it was clearly stated not to flip through the papers, so he did, just as he did time and time before. Of all the glossies, comics, and serials methodically placed on the racks, his hand impulsively laid on the Cosmopolis Herald, that one, of which he was an avid reader.
Banned a few times, the mag had descended into infamy for its relentless investigation of a murder case in which a certain Elder was a prime suspect.
Harshly criticized for their allegedly sympathetic stance towards the revolting farmers, the Boers, its editors had on many occasions been brought to court, lost their freedom and filed for bankruptcy again and again, but no matter what, their comeback was a sure thing, to their reader base they stayed true, and most of all, to their credo.
Dusk leafed through the pages, looking for anything worth his dimes—without complaint from the vendor—he knew the young man, a returning customer, they had a little chat or two before; and he always bought in the end.
Back at platform 7, the railroad down the tunnel juddered, the track quavered under pressure of the approaching train, its headlights emerging out of the concrete cavern. Slowing down before it offed by, its doors slid open in tandem, and the egressing passengers in heavy motion broke loose, giving way to those boarding in droves.
Dusk made it on board just in time, no spare seats to be found; found himself having but to jostle against the straphangers, syncing with the machine's gradual jolty walk forward. And in keeping up with the commuting customs, the Metropolitans, those laborious folk, took to their booklets, phones, papers and what not; barring the few who settled down into that routine of nodding off on the way home, making up for their sleep deprived nights.
About fifteen minutes on board still, stopping by some station on the way home; yet straphanging on edge of the car, getting elbowed left and right as people came in while others left; but the grab handle he wasn't to release off his grip; and as he looked through the glass, at the strangers outside, the same faces waiting for a ride, flowing in and out, about the station scattered in rhythmic disorder. Looking spaced out as he watched those in their suits carrying their briefcases, conversing in closed circles, looking down on that subway performer at the corner, next to the ticket machines to which others rushed so to snatch a pass, arguing who was first, who should be last; the station agents too, pleading them to stand in line, though the conductor calling on them so to hurry, had made it even worse.
And then suddenly, on the spur of the moment at the periphery of his vision, just as the train's doors were about to slide shut again, through all that haze, of all types of people and things that mustered at each platform and gate, before they went strewn in every direction in haste, in the midst of it all, walking down the flight of stairs—there SHE was again.
The girl from the rooftop.
Stunned, no she could not be! he thought at the sight of his darling, but there was she, a reality before him; though not alone together with her companion, yet there she was where he was not, and there he could see her though she did not.
Her jacket she tied around her waist, as she kept on walking, confabbing with that someone to her side, laughing, and for a second shuffle dancing to the broadcast music, even if she was bad at it, she didn't seem to care; heading to the vending machines, walking past the jocks hitting on her and her friend, shrugging them off she didn't give a hoot; just as they reached out to the ticket machines jumping the line, paying no heed to the sign over her head, warning them not to do it.
Dusk sought his way out of the train, but the doors had already closed shut, slamming his fist on the door, cursing his luck, they scowled at him, but that mattered not; they were nonexistent, nobody was, around him. As if none of them was visible to his senses, none but her—this mysterious creature—there standing for a while, her hand brushing through her hair, just when the train got going; and with each jerk forward he burnt inside, he had to get out.
Something pulled him back, drawing him back to her, driven by the regret eating him since that morning at the rooftop; after he said nothing when he should've said anything, so this maybe was the time, maybe it was destined to be this way. Save for a little problem, the train inside which he hopelessly was stuck, was leaving with no intention to halt and honor his endeavor. But his eyes were not to part her, until, just as the train penetrated the dark of the tunnel, as if by something of a fluke, her handkerchief she dropped, without noticing.
The minutes passed like hours before they made it to the next station, and in blind animal panic bolted he out to catch the first one back, running wild through the crowd, running through a labyrinth of interweaving passions shut before him. All for that mystery girl who stormed his life like Isolde was Tristan's plight. Driven mad by thrill of the chase after someone about whom he knew nothing, not an address nor a name.
Soon enough, the inbound train had brought him back, and shrill of its brakes filled his will. He stepped out, looked around, and the vigor in his eyes faded away, just as the faces he left behind were there no more, and she no longer, was, there.
No! she must be somewhere, somewhere near! reminding, reassuring the tentative bits of his unyielding self.
In search for her he went, place to place, store to store, the cafe shops, anywhere, climbing the stairs up and down, looking high and low, even walking out the station, searching down the street, wherever his feet dragged him, nearly drove him mad, but in the end, he was to accept his reality—the girl he sought out of all, was gone.
He failed, the girl had left, left she without a trace. But soon in the haze of his loss, in his frustration and consternation, that he remembered, the handkerchief! Darting back into the station, to where he last saw her, with sure pace he walked down that same staircase, almost there, from over there, his eyes rummaged through the floor, where he'd seen her dropping it trying to recall, corner to corner the trail of his memory he followed, until the rose hanky he found, thrown on the ground still where it had been.
Crouching down he picked it up, and in his hand for an instant he did nothing but gawk at it, a handsewn hanky, with the initials N. L. stitched on it.
Closer to his face he brought it. Closing his eyes breathing in, that fragrance, the scent of its owner, as sweet as the leaves of bay laurel in late spring, to the verge of a dream it drove him. With every breath he could almost picture her there. And even if that was nothing more than a scent, it was her scent, feeling as though in his hand he laid hold on a part of her.
