in parentheses

Farriz Mashudi is a former lawyer, journalist, and blogger, turned writer of fiction and CNF in short and long forms. Born in Malaysia, she has fond memories of a childhood spent in Canada before studying in Wales and England. She currently resides in the Middle East.

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On the Rails

Margaret’s hand nestles in Charlie’s palm, shielded from the overhanging question mark, which like the shared baggage in the compartment overhead, threatens to divide their future. Outlines of trees blur jaggedly leaving traces as long as the train’s rolling tracks, the longer she stares out the window. The young woman glances at her young man: he’s both here and faraway. She does well to not think of her and him, nor of either of them, but of those dark streaks. They’re there and they’re not. As certain and unclear as the landscape that whizzes by, she feels something’s astir. New beginnings? Old endings? Like the story isn’t hers alone, but everyone’s. Margaret turns to look out the other side then snaps her eyes shut to centre herself as the shifting shapes of smudged trees on both sides bracket her in.

Unwanted parentheses? Curved lines intentionally applied, or by mistake, an error too late to make right before time’s up on her last paper? Was this another waking stress dream? Finals were over and done with, but as the engine gains speed Margaret feels herself shrinking in her seat like the fast-fading woods outside. A side note, her existence is reduced. An extra inserted without endangering flow. Discourse is not disrupted—

‘Meg, you have them?’

Her eyes open to see Charlie sitting upright opposite, tap-tap-tapping his chest, his nose a beak peeking inside his coat. She blinks in disbelief, hesitant. She wants to shake her head. Is relieved when the furrow on her boyfriend’s forehead clears as the fingers of his large hands find the outline of their tickets, still safe inside the garment’s inner pocket. The ALL ACCESS VIENNA pass allows them on all the trains. They share a smile holding hands again, appreciating the sanctuary of the vacant carriage. Their bliss doesn’t last.

From the neighbouring compartment jostling and commotion force Margaret’s gaze to look past Charlie’s able shoulders. Escaping the clamour, a woman approaches and settles herself wordlessly nearby. Charlie’s flashing blue eyes bid caution, but Margaret cranes her neck to take in the woman’s sheet-straight hair, same as hers—black to the roots; the same pale, not-quite-white skin that’s termed ‘yellow’ no matter where they travel. Though when Charlie says it, ‘Yellow Fever’ is an endearment reserved for her alone. She notices real colour rising in the woman’s cheeks. In fear or shame? Margaret can’t make out which. The tone of the continued shouting in German or the ‘Austrian equivalent’ as Charlie liked to call it, requires no translation.Alarm registers on Margaret’s face: What’s going on?  

‘GO HOME! . . . TO YOUR OWN COUNTRY!’ Charlie mouths for her. 

Another voice responds, shrill and immediate. This, too, Charlie repeats in English: ‘Shut

up! You look HOMELESS.’

Hoorah! The woman has an avenger, Margaret thinks. This place that could be anywhere really, wasn’t all bad.

Charlie shrugs as he looks over his shoulders. ‘We should stay out of it, Meg. Nearly there now,’ he adds, squeezing her hand.

Stay out of it? The woman, who looks so small where she sits, looks out the window as if looking to cast away the darkness she’s tucking deep down in her heart, to keep it hidden in that distant past that hurtles by with all the bad times, bad things, all the bad in her life. To put the memory behind her and never find it again. To lose them, like Charlie and their tickets, or so he’d thought, just minutes before. That’s what it looks like to Margaret.

Charlie’s gentle thumb pat-pat-pats in sweet strokes. Never mind . . . Never mind . . .

Shouldn’t they go over? she wants to ask.

Say something, at least? She wants to say something, feels she should say something now before the moment that feels fleeting is gone, before its solid form escapes and is lost like the disappeared trees. But she doesn’t speak German or Austrian, nor Chinese.

Is anyone else seeing this? Are there cameras hidden in the train’s panelling that’s capturing it all? There should be security cameras. Even a live feed. Where would the woman have run to if she and Charlie weren’t here? Where are the cameras? She wants to get up.

Charlie lifts her hand to his lips and plants a kiss squarely in the middle. He tells a joke to make her laugh, which she does, if feebly. He’s good like that. They’re good. They are, they really are, she tells herself. Still, she wishes she’d said something. She should have said something. She can still.

The woman continues to look out—of the window, for her safety, too, perhaps, Margaret guesses. It could easily have been her. Mistook on looks for the enemy, for looking foreign, an alien: one of these things that doesn’t belong here.

Right up this street?

She remains seated. That makes three.

The train rattles onwards.

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