Station

V

Darren walked down the stairs leading from the station onto the street in synch with the ticking of the clock. Step by step, tick by tack. His walk was hurried due to this, but it didn't bother him.

He couldn't watch the trains any longer. The trains that seemed to eat up their passengers, hindering them from ever returning to the station. Maybe that was the reason Darren never saw any face twice. He hoped it wasn't.

His train of thought was short lived, interrupted by the endless floods of people that washed down the street he stood on now. However, Darren was the rock in the stream that the water consistent of people avoided like the plague, weaving around him like he couldn't be moved by any force.

Slowly and monotonous, Darren began his walk, yet again against the flow of the river. He always did, mainly for a single reason. It enabled him to watch the faces of the people passing by, made it possible for him to understand the mood.

Despite this, today his head was cast downwards. The ticking seemed more persistent than usual and in bothered him to the point that he couldn't look at others in fear of them hearing it too.

It was almost as if the clock was trying to keep him in the station, as if a storm was coming that he should be running from, or rather hide away from.

Before he knew it, he was back to Ms Casablanca's store. The ticking was all he could focus on as he began rummaging through the giant trash bin. His eyes and sense of touch was all he could trust in as his hearing was all but inhibited by his own thoughts.

And so it was no wonder that he didn't notice Ms Casablanca's attempts at calling out to him until she grabbed his arm. In an instant, it was silent, no more ticking, just Ms Casablanca's angry face. She was saying something, but Darren could only tell because her mouth was moving. He couldn't hear a single word.

Nevertheless, he nodded in understanding, assuming she had asked him to leave because he had been trying to steal from the store again, even when what he wanted to take was considered its trash. But as they say, one man's trash is another man's treasure, and no one would willingly hand over a treasure for nothing.

"Mister!", Ms Casablanca called out as soon as Darren had turned away. He turned his head slightly to look back at her over his shoulder in confusion. The girl that couldn't possibly have reached her thirties yet stood there with an annoyed yet stubborn look, as if she was contemplating committing a capital offense that would save hundreds of lives.

"You know what?", she finally sighed, the distraught look on her face changing into one of acceptance, "I'll buy you something, what do you want?"

Her offer seemed generous and kind, but Darren could see she had just about as much trouble getting through the week as him, judging by how her clothes looked and how much of a burden buying food for Darren seemed to be.

Darren gave her a smile of appreciation, the wrinkles around his eyes drawing closer together and his beard lifting with the action. However, he declined her with a simple shake of his head. Thanking her verbally for the offer wasn't within his capability, he hadn't talked in over a decade after all.

Quickly, he left Ms Casablanca behind, trying to avoid the questions she surely wanted to ask him after he had declined her generosity. Yet, as he threw a look over his shoulder, she was already gone and Darren's steps came to a halt.

For a while, he wandered aimlessly, his mind focused on the woman as his body moved on it own. Only when he stood in front of the store window of a bookshop did he realise where his feet had carried him.

He hadn't been here since over one and a half decades, and for good reason. After all, despite all his efforts, the novels Darren had written had never sold well and that crushed his spirit. He had been defeated by his own ineptitude.

While he had used to look at books with wonder and awe, nowadays he could only shamefully neglect them. He couldn't look at them without being reminded of his own failure and it made him sick.

Darren's eyes squeezed shut tightly as he turned his back to the shelves full of books. None of which would ever carry the name Darren Hardie.