Years later he wondered what his life would have been like if he'd have missed that train. The morning that he was to leave his uncle's he'd woken up early, looked out the window at the streaks of sunlight pouring through a thin layer of cirrus onto a field of wildflowers and began to feel nostalgic for the time he'd spent in the north. The light was colder here, offering only some small bit of warmth. And yet, like gold, its scarcity somehow made its presence more valuable. Yes, strange though it may have sounded to the people from his town down south, he'd miss the subtle changing of the leaves that happened earlier here, the way the songbirds could be heard more clearly when all the leaves were cleared away. He'd miss his uncle's laugh, guttural and full of a quiet mirth.
He was down in front of the house that sprawling house, with a grand front porch adorned by two tables and several white rocking chairs, and above, where he and his uncle had smoked cigarettes and discussed the day's events, another porch, where you could look out over the sea of grass at fireflies winking into and out of existence, in good time. He hugged his aunt and uncle goodbye, making promises to visit them again someday soon. His uncle would die a few weeks later of pneumonia and this would be there final parting, but the event held no such solemnity. They had taken pleasure in one another's company and were sad to part ways, but sure that they'd share a drink and some laughter again at some point in time.
The coach arrived promptly by seven thirty, driven by a young man with coal black hair, who had to keep brushing it away from his face with his right hand while driving. For some reason he felt lethargic and sad, weighed down by the impossibility of how long the coach ride to the station would be. It was only an hour. But he imagined spending the hour in tense silence, waiting for he and the coachman to talk. And the idea of that time stretched before him like some unending stretch of water. It appeared as vast as the ocean. He liked people and liked them to like him. What he needed to do was ask a question to pass the time.
"How long have you been doing this?" he asked the coach man.
"Not long," he answered, without turning his head but merely tilting it, keeping his eyes on the road ahead. The road was muddy. The tracks were well worn and the grass on the sides was pushed down and spattered with bits of mud from the spokes of wheels.
"Is your family from around here?" he asked.
"Nearby."
"What brought you to this job?"
"This job is as good as any other."
"Do you like the horses?"
"Not really. Don't care much for them."
He wanted the young man to be happy in his job. He had wanted him to say that he had an abiding love in rubbing down the horses and driving strangers around to the station or from house to house. Unpleasantness was the sort of thing that burdened him.
The wheel broke a mile out from the train. It had started to rain, a thin mist, like the mist of water falling upon stone from a great height. The sky was leaden and small. He thought that he would not make his train. He'd be making the same journey on the next day, engaging some other coachman in polite conversation to pass the hour. Life was cyclical.
A clatter of wheels twenty minutes later signaled the arrival of another coach. He signaled to the driver by doffing his hat, and, after some brief discussion, his goods were transferred, and he was sitting on the top of a coach with another gentleman, not knowing that his life had just changed.
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