Les

An old man sits alone,

The flickering light outside of the seemingly abandoned train station strobes against the thick snow falling in the early morning darkness. A wisp of steam rises from his shallow breath as he hunches over on a bench with his head in his callused hands.

The train had departed long ago, leaving the alpine village and creaking its way down the beaten tracks for the last time.

The pain was evident, welling up behind his eyes and spilling out onto his weathered face. He had never been alone before, not truly alone anyway. The frost that had once melted off his back now clung on as if smelling his weakness and dug its claws into a new home. His collar, once perfectly pressed, was now turned up at the flakes as he began to shuffle slowly and unsteadily away from the station.

Time, he felt had skipped him by, like a lake returning to calm after a stone has journeyed across it. It wasn’t his fault, it never was his fault.

The morning was breaking behind him as he turned slowly and faced the still dark valley. Step by step he faded into the deepening snow.

Valleys away, the train pulls itself through into the light, parting a blanket of fresh snow as it heads onward.