Standing on the platform, looking at the woman on the opposing platform, Edward thought he recognized his favorite high school teacher. She had been only a few years older than him. He had intuited a spark between the, but had never acted on it, of course. That would have been terrifying and possibly even criminal. He squinted to see if it was in fact Miss Beck over there. The rain complicated matters. Drops disrupted his field of vision but had also put additional clothes on her, coat, hat. He thought about calling her name, or waving, but another thought rushed in behind those thoughts, which was this: What would be the point? If he were to do this, he needed to have a goal, or rather to recognize the goal that was always with him. The goal was to make the moment work for him. No, not for him, but for something larger. To be precise, it went along a transitive chain. The moment must be made to work for him. He must be made to work for something larger. And then that something larger, whether a sense of beauty or a sense of justice or a sense of absurdity, must be made to work for something even larger. God? The Universe? Every second that fell from the clock was in service. He blinked. Miss Beck was gone. His own train would screech into the station any second now. The city, where he’d be in twenty minutes or so, was a hive of future moments.
©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas
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