Weekly Writing – April 15 2023

The first time he saw her, she was standing on a platform at Moonrill Station, waiting to board the afternoon train with three dozen other people. The only reason she stood out to him in particular was because of her hair, red as a banner of war under a sensible grey hat. She caught him staring and tipped her hat, and a cryptic little smile, at him.
The second time he saw her, six weeks had passed, and the train’s horrible crash had finally started to smoulder down in the news. The public had gotten its fill of ‘sudden derailment just south of Moonrill River’ and ‘no survivors’. He’d seen all the fiery pictures.
He had seen her board that train. Yet there she was, standing on a street corner with her red hair free to the wind. He stared again, couldn’t help himself, couldn’t catch himself before she turned his way.
She shot him another smile across the crowded street. Just as cryptic, but this time, like a secret they shared.
He stood frozen, paralyzed by every fiery picture he’d seen, watching as she joined a handful of people in boarding a bus headed for the station.