‘What If?’

The cold concrete steps beneath me as I sit, watching the passers by.
My train has not arrived yet.
She walks down the stairs across the platform with her friend.
Her blonde hairs falls from her head, lush and graceful.
She tries to walk across the platform and I smile. She cannot walk in heels.
She looks at me and we smile at each other.
I continue to sit as a cool breeze blows against my neck.
I remove my hat and shuffle my hands through my hair. The breeze is nice.
I pull my phone out and inspect the time.
There is still time.
Still time until my train arrives.
I glance over at the girls, I see them glance back and giggle.
I smile to myself and change the song on my iPod.
Children finishing school rush past me, yelling at each other.
I cannot hear them but watch as they race in time to my music.
A freight train passes as I tip my head back against the white poles along the stairs.
I close my eyes and let go.
I feel the wind and the sound of a fading freight as I slip away from reality.
The train passes and the song changes. I check the time.
I still have time.
The girl gets up and begins to walk over, I could swear she looked at me.
But my cynicism tells me she will pass.
She is next to me now. I see her smooth white legs in front of me.
My heart beats.
Could she stop?
She stops. She turns and kneels down next to me and begins to talk.
I remove my headphones and talk back.
She is beautiful.
And we chat friendly. I wonder how this could happen, and why, and my heart races.
I mumble and say everything wrong.
I panic under pressure.
I try to take in all the information, but my brain is lapsing.
What did she say her name was?
It was like a dream and when you wake, try as you might to remember, it slips falling through a void.
A void where you can never reach it, in the empty crevices of your mind.
I try to remember. But I can’t. It’s like trying to catch wind with your hands.
Soon the time comes and the train arrives.
I wish I had more time.
I have forgotten, and no matter how far and wide I search I still cannot find what I am looking for.
If only the time on my phone moved in reverse.
If it gave me more time.
If I could have said what I thought, what I meant… what I truly felt.
Would that have been so wrong?
But time goes on. Forward. Seconds lead into minutes. Minutes lead into hours. Hours lead into days.
And the next time you wake you lose a little bit more.
Sometimes I wonder… when we die… do we perhaps live again?
Do we simply relive life, over and over again, without the knowledge that this has all happened before?
With that dying thought being ‘What If?’
With no memory we repeat our lives. Repeat our mistakes.
But with that nagging feeling in the back of our minds.
Has this happened before?
Or was it, perhaps, a dream?