2 - Train Fellow

For the next train fellow , the note said.

I smiled. The journey, I realized, had only just begun. Would you like this as a prose poem, a flash fiction, or a script for a short film? train fellow 2

This time, though, something shifted.

I stared. Then took the apple. Then laughed—because he was right. Because in all those wordless trips, he had been noticing. And so had I. His habit of tapping his ring on the armrest when the train crossed a bridge. The way he always saved a seat for someone who never came. For the next train fellow , the note said

And that’s when I understood: a train fellow isn’t a stranger forever. Sometimes, a second crossing turns him into a companion. Not by plan. By mileage. By the slow, diesel-scented accumulation of small, shared silences finally breaking open. Would you like this as a prose poem,

“You take the window side,” he said. “Last time, I noticed you like to watch the river bend at Mile 14.”

He turned. Held one out.