From Passages, a Story-Cycle
Unraveling the Mystery of the Bow Tie
Short Fiction
I . Memories at High Speed
Marian Fellson would have appeared dead, but for a black, tattered bow tie twisting between her fingers.
Resting against the train’s window, her head was a blurred double. Lincoln-black eyes hid underneath a mass of hair — for decades dyed black. Underneath her seat: a huge bag, stuffed like a plump black bear. Her lips seemed ravaged with the red berries of nightshade.
While thinking about the dead, she was eavesdropping on the living.
To be alone was weary. She appreciated its touch. She was hoping, though, her sole friend, Eleanor, now Ellie — what a silly name — the one familiar pillar in cities foreign and cold — would restore that support. Marian needed someone. When one falls, after all, it’s forever.
And I will talk about my cats and my Papa and she will talk about her Dominick, who was probably like a father to her. And we’ll talk about the immoral passengers in harmony. And it will be good again, and right.
The TGV was quiet, gliding along at 360 kilometers an hour toward Switzerland. Such speed did not impress her. Through the glass, she couldn’t count the endless high-tension…
