The Missing

Three PM.  The commuter rush hour was beginning to pick up, and the soft atmosphere that had blanketed the train station was fading to be replaced by the hectic rush to and fro for the evening commute home.

Outside, a small breeze was picking up.  The forecasters had predicted rain, but the coming storm had not yet imposed itself on the city.  Only the first evidence of such an evening were slowly creeping in: feathery clouds with a darker horizon threatening.  The air was getting chillier too, as the sun's rays began losing their heat much faster now.

I couldn't help but fidget in my chair, for I'd been waiting it seemed for quite some time.  Checking my watch I noted the time again.  Three hours.  Three hours I had sat here, taking impromptu pictures of passers-by and simply whiled the time away.  Was it time for another cigarette?  No, my throat was parched and the process of lugging all of my stuff outside again was simply discouraging.  I stood to stretch my legs.  I must have dozed at one point with how stiff my body had become.

With the increasing throng of people rushing to catch their trains I had hardly noticed that the restaurant was now open, and a few business-looking men in suits were being ushered to a table as a flustered waitress scrambled to get enough chairs for all of them, quickly noting the impatient orders for drinks at the same time.  I noticed her clothes were well pressed and clean.  She was attractive with a single lock of strands having come loose from her hair dangling down her face.  I stared at her, wondering if she could feel my gaze, wondering if she would look up and notice.  She never did.

Across from me was a sad looking young girl sitting next to an elderly lady.  She was dressed prettily in a garnet gown and dolly slippers, her hair daintily tied up with ribbons.  She did notice me, and a faint twitch appeared on her lips, the beginnings of a smile I presumed.  I waved at her and smiled myself, to which she responded in kind, now fully smiling.

'Where are they?' I pondered.  My friends were supposed to have come to pick me up a long time ago, and the last phone call I'd received had let me know they would be behind schedule.  Had they even left yet, I wondered?

I walked to the coffee kiosk for something new to drink.  Being that I'd already had two "mocha's", an ice-blended cappuccino, and even regular coffee I felt obvlivious to the high level of caffeine I was sure was in my system.  "Yeah, I'll take another ice-blended vanilla."  As the girl started my drink, my eyes roved the lobby again.  The pretty waitress was bustling between tables now, and as she dashed back and forth I realized she was out of her element.  I wondered if she was one of those people that comes to this city with high hopes for an acting career, or perhaps modeling or becoming a musician.  There was a quasi-subculture for just these types of people.  You could almost see it in their eyes, though I wasn't close enough to this waitress to be able to in hers yet.  On the outside they're bubbly, chipper, and energetic.  But beneath that is either sadness or indignation.  Why isn't anyone calling me?  Maybe I'm not good enough?  It's like a neon sign on the forehead to me, and I've come to recognize it well.

"Here you are.  That'll be five dollars."

"Thanks."  I paid, tipped, and took my drink across the thoroughfare nearer to the restaurant's promenade.  I was now close enough to hear the businessmen talking to each other, and a multitude of other conversations as well.  The waitress had gone inside, so I walked to a nearby seat just outside the promenade, directly across the thoroughfare from where the little girl in the pretty dress was sitting.  She noticed me again, peeking above the armrest.  I mock-hid behind the armrest of my own chair then peeked above it as well, to which she appeared to giggle.  There was a sort of light about her, something airy and refreshing that made "playing" with her soothing and enjoyable.  I hadn't really felt anything like that before.  I wondered what it would have been like if I'd had had kids of my own.

Laughing that idea off (Me?  Kids?  Hah!), I returned my attention to the business meeting.  "She's so fired, I tell ya," one of the men was saying.  "These aren't organized at all, there's mistakes everywhere... I'm so sorry.  I'll have them redone as soon as possible."

The table had grown silent, all attention on this one man.  "Well, have you got your computer with you?"

"Well, yes..."

"No time like the present."

The man chuckled nervously.  "Y-yes sir.  I'll get right on it."

The waitress had emerged again, and this time she was close enough for me to see her much more clearly.  She had light brown hair with matching eyes, and to my complete and utter lack of surprise behind the smile there was a jaded quality veiled behind a light brown iris.  She sighed wearily, then recomposed herself and cheerily said, "Okay, who had the dry martini?"

The patron hardly acknowledged her.  He merely rose his arm slightly, which was the signal for "Me", I assumed.  This continued until all the men had their drinks.  When she was done, she turned to go but then felt my gaze, apparently.  She turned in my direction.  I must have stared at her for a few seconds and made her uncomfortable; looking confused, she smiled politely and hurried back to the kitchen.  Why the heck had I stared at her like that?  At least I could have given her a friendly smile...

I turned to my left, disgusted with myself, and spied the little girl again, fiddling with her shoe.  This time I noticed that the elderly lady she had been sitting next to was gone.  The little girl was alone.

I visually searched the coffee kiosk and the bagel stand to see if I could find what I had thought was her grandmother there, but no such lady was there.  I turned to look behind me to see if she was walking down the thoroughfare among the other commuters, but no one looked like her.  I turned back to the girl, who was clapping her hands.  She must have been about four or five years-old from what I could tell.  How does anyone in this day and age leave a five year-old girl by herself in a busy train station?  I stood and started to cross the throng in her direction.

She noticed me almost immediately and began to smile sweetly.  When I got to her I stood in front of her, rested my hands on my knees, and asked her: "Hi there!  What happened to your mommy?"  The girl didn't respond with words, but looked behind her.  She turned back, her normally sweet and angelic face now fearful, for some reason.  Maybe she hadn't realized she was alone?

"What's your name?" I asked her.  Again she didn't speak, but tears began welling in her little eyes, and she reached up for me to take her in my arms.  I looked in the direction she had before and noticed a strange looking man walking toward us.  He was shorter than me, but burlier with mean looking forearms and a powerful gait.  The girl looked again, and seeing him much closer now seem to put her on edge.  She whirled back to me and nearly jumped out of her seat pleading for me to pick her up.  She was audibly whimpering, and the tears were flowing more freely.  She was obviously scared of this man.

When he reached them, he looked down to her and said, "Well now, where yer been off to?  Come 'long now, ye little tart."  He moved to pick her up but I stepped in closer and the little girl's arms shot up to reach up to me.

"Now hold on, here," I interjected.  "I'm not sure this girl feels comfortable going with you."

The man followed the little girl's eyes and raised arms to look at me, though strangely he didn't seem to look at me so much as through me.  "What's that?"

I repeated myself, prepared to take the little girl in my protective arms.  I really didn't know why I hadn't up to this point yet.

"Ne'ermind that.  Come 'long now."

I sprang forward and reached for the little girl as her cries rang out.  She reached out again as I closed in to scoop her away...

And felt nothing.  Nothing at all.

Blinking, I looked and saw her again, looking as confused as I felt.  "What'cher doin' there, missy?  C'mon now, I 'aven't got all day."  I grabbed for her arm to maybe tug her away, but my hand closed on nothing but air.  Through her arm.

The man stooped to pick her up in his arms, and was successful.  As he turned, the girl looked at me with tearful, pleading blue eyes.  But with every step the burly man took away from me, her shoulders slumped with defeat, and she simply cried.

I looked back to the chair she had been sitting in, feeling the padding.  It was cool to the touch, lacking the warmth of a girl that must've been sitting there for at least half an hour.  Looking up again inside of thirty seconds, I realized I'd lost sight of both man and girl.

Perplexed by the whole event, I returned to my seat near the businessmen and their lovely waitress.  They were engaged in a hushed discussion I could barely make out, and the waitress was no where to be seen.  But the image of the little girl reaching up to me wouldn't leave my mind.  Had I completely dreamt that?  I've never taken drugs, so I can't say they fried my brain.  I was terribly unsettled and distracted by the time the waitress did come back.  I looked up and saw her gazing in my direction.  This time she didn't appear to be looking at me, but past me.  Through me.  This day was just getting weirder and weirder.

It was then that my friends had finally caught up to me.  My phone rang in my pocket.  "Hello?"

"Yeah man, sorry.  We're out front."

"Alright, here I come."

That night after having dinner and drinks I went back to the room I would share with my best friend, a guy I'd known since grade school.  He was surfing the internet so intently he was startled when I walked in.  "Hey man, sorry to startle you,"  I apologized.  "Whatcha doin'?"

He rubbed his face, then turned to me gravely.  "Remember those stories you told earlier?  About the waitress and the little girl?"

"Yeah?"

"Well," he motioned to the monitor, and I approached.  On the screen he had two news articles.  One was a simple story while the other was a missing child notice.  The story was about a young woman that went missing one night from her job working at a restaurant in the metropolitan train station; her body was found two weeks later, badly decomposed, miles away in the local forest.  The other was a notice that a girl had gone missing at the same train station, but she was never found; that one was archived, and the last seen date was almost fifty years ago.

But what really stopped my heart and turned my world upside down were the pictures.  The waitress was the very same waitress waiting on the businessmen, and the little girl was the very same that I couldn't pick up.

"Holy... wow.  Um, wow," was all I could say.

"No kidding.  You swear you saw that?"

I nodded.  But why?  What was the purpose?

A wave of sadness suddenly washed over me.  Even though I'd had no prior knowledge of either person, it was as if I knew them personally from the day's events.  I even found that I missed the little girl who's name I never knew.

They were gone.  And even though I'd never had them, I felt a sense of loss.  How can one feel loss for something they never had?

 

Author's Note

Have you ever felt like you lost something that wasn't yours anyway?

Reviews

[Daphne Merryfield]

Very intriguing! I loved this story. It flowed well. I was thinking maybe he was the ghost! Very good job!