Margen
He ran down the platform with his suitcase banging against his legs. The 20:47 train was already closing its doors.
He reached them by a second. He wedged in a foot, forced the gap, got in. He dropped into a seat by the window, his heart beating in his throat and a foolish grin of triumph on his face. He had made it.
He got his breath back. He took out his phone to tell Elena he would be on time for dinner after all.
Seventy-three missed calls. Two hundred messages.
The first was from Elena, three years ago: "where are you? the train's already in and you didn't get off".
The rest went down the calendar, further and further apart, until the last one, from that very afternoon, from an unknown number: "they're finally clearing away the wreckage of the 20:47 today. rest in peace".
The carriage was full. Everyone was looking out of the window. Everyone, like him, had just caught the train by a second.