The Fossil from That Winter

A short story

That winter was so cold that blinking felt like sliding eyelids over frozen marbles. I missed my train. Back then, the train station was just the concrete platform above the glossy rails. Steam mixed with cigarette smoke hung above the platform. Cold seeped into my knees through the three layers of clothing. The next train would come in twenty minutes, each minute would form another tiny icicle on my scarf as I breathed out steam over the wool.

I climbed down the stairs, clasping the railing. The snow smoothed gaps between the steps so that the stairs turned into a steep slide. Below, there was a tiny building, something between a garage and a shed -- an orange blotch over the white. Its sign read: Books.

The warmth inside was palpable. I unzipped my puffer jacket to store a bit of warmth. I’d need it if the train ran late. The dimly lit shelves were filled with paperbacks, crossword puzzles and pens. The shop assistants clustered at the cash register, the drone of their conversation soothing like a lullaby.

“But can’t you see that I’m a human too?”

The question came clean, stripped of rhetoric. Someone was really asking that, from between the bookshelves. I leaned back and saw the woman.

She was not old. She wore thick glasses and a beret. Her coat looked strange -- it was a coat one might wear in a much warmer season. One of the shop assistants towered above her in that pose some people of limited authority acquire.

“It’s too cold outside,” the woman said, “let me stay. I’m not touching anything.”

I hid behind the bookshelf, clinging to my normality. I picked up a random book and flipped through it. My heart thumped. The door creaked open and closed again. The shop became too quiet. They chased her back into the cold.

I don’t remember how I got out. I must have taken my time because the woman had walked quite far away into the layers of the blizzard that was rising. I ran after her.

I didn’t have much money on me but enough for a hot lunch. I pushed the banknotes to her without any explanation, as if we both knew why.

“Take it,” I said.

She looked at the crumpled notes and then at me. Through the thick glasses, her eyes seemed too large and light blue, like ice. She searched for something in my face, then smiled as if apologizing.

“Do I really look that bad?” she asked.

I had no script for that. I became acutely aware I couldn’t say I’d witnessed the interaction in the shop.

“I just want you to have lunch somewhere warm,” I said.

I think she understood then. Her face changed into that cheerful reassurance that adults use to pacify a distressed kid. She took the banknotes from me.

“It’s all right,” she said. “I can’t go home now. My daughter’s having a visitor. But I will go home later.” She waved her hand towards the rails as if she lived there. There were just grey trees sticking through the snow. She showed me the banknotes. “See? I have money. I’ll go buy new glasses.”

I shook my head.

“It won’t be enough for that,” I said. “Just go to a cafe, have a coffee. Eat something.”

She nodded quickly.

“I’ll do just that,” she said, “I’ll be all right.”

I don’t remember how we parted. She disappeared into the blizzard together with the platform, the rails and the bare trees. The orange book shop, that bitter winter, and the town got wiped away, leaving only the fossil of the memory behind.

My photo of a mountain trail through clouds.