The world greeted her through a coat of mahogany. Those dark pupils looked straight ahead, frozen to a view of bodies leaving patches of sweat on each others shoulders as they shoved each other back and forth with a bang as suitcases clanked together and tens of lungs breathed the condensed air of loud megaphone announcements and body heat. Her eyes were wide open, fixed towards the crowd.  Those brown eyes looked straight ahead, and saw nothing. Her arms moved to the floor and from under the stained plastic chair lifted a black satchel and took out a one-way railway ticket to Crosby station. As her back pressed against the chair again, she tilted towards the passing trains and still saw nothing. A Man with a long wooden trolley came towards her and abruptly blocked her vision-less gaze and she was forced to focus her eyes and see.

“A bun for the misses?” The particles of steaming bread wafted to her nose but she did not smell.

The background noise of the megaphone suddenly became the initial sound she heard as the loud announcement for “Train for CROSSBY STATION to depart in 7 minutes” was made.

She looked back at the man in the dirty apron with his tray of steaming buns, which she saw he had probably never eaten as his skinny hand of bones was under her nose ushering for the coins.

“Oh yes please” she moved her cheek bones into a somewhat smile, a warm gesture - and emptied the pennies from her wallet into the old man’s palm. He touched each coin with his dirty fingernails and once he was done counting, shifted his shriveled lips into a smile and put a bun into a brown paper bag and left it on the young lady’s lap. The old man knew that it was pointless in staying as he could see the lift in her pupils were gone and that her eyes were somewhere else, nowhere once again, staring but not seeing.  The grease from the bun slowly diffused onto the thin paper bag, leaving the outside with a round patch, wallowing on her dark blue jeans and from a distance all the hurried men and woman could see a young lady, alone in the middle of a row of chairs, eyes open, staring straight ahead with a brown bag on top of her two legs as a dark brown splotch of grease grew larger and larger on it. They could see the big eyes; with thick black eyelashes that gazed straight ahead, seeing nothing. 

Dark horizons turned crimson, the sun and moon took turns in ruling the sky, a vicious cycle day in and day out that went on for infinity. The world spun and it was mid-week, just as a shy oyster of a sun colored the sky with coral blues and glowed with early morning hints of orange when Margaret Fisher stopped. It was not the crumpled brown paper that gave her palm a small paper cut but the contents that infected her blood with drops of grief.  That sunrise was the last one she had seen since, the last memory she had before the sparkle in her eyes started to fade into a dull off white as she read the words “Killed in action”. It started with a shrill ring of a rusted doorbell that chimed, shocking her ears as she woke. It was a door that opened and a letter that was passed into her hands and sorrowful eyes that she thanked as she glanced at the sky and the morning began.  A yellow brown telegram that depicted in faded letters its regrets for her loss and that turned her into a widow.

Have a little faith they said. You’re not alone they said. The lord will watch over him, as he does over all good men they said.

One day she was a bride beaming in a white veil with flowers being thrown on her trail. His hazel chocolate eyes melted into her eyes of deep mahogany and created a soft symphony of warmth and sweet milk chocolate at the bottom of her stomach. That fulfilling, tingling sensation of love.

Lets just say that life had not been kind to Margaret Fisher. Things started to change in the summer of 1944 and less than two weeks later it was over and the carpet of light headed joy was swept from under her feet causing her to fall backwards, down the ladder to the deserted underbelly of emptiness once again.

Smoke caressed her hair and drew water out her eyes. She got up like there were invisible ropes hauling up her arms and thrusting her legs and bags forward with it. Seconds later, the toes of her yellow boots greeted the faded yellow line and stood perfectly steady next to each other awaiting a train, as if on autopilot. Two minutes later her yellow shoes were on the line itself and from a distance it looked just like an on going line with a little lump of shiny wellington texture in the middle, part of the line itself. Three minutes later the bright yellow sole of her bright yellow boots had left a dusty mark on the “do no cross” writing. The toes of her bright yellow boots now greeted a black line and stood perfectly steady next to each other awaiting a train, as if on autopilot. Four minutes later the toes of her bright yellow boots were towering over shiny pieces of rock and charcoal and five minutes later there she was, mahogany eyes and all peering down onto masses of charcoal and railway track with almond hair all over her face. And suddenly, there it was – that little glint on the top of her pupil, a flicker of life as she saw what was robbed from her all these weeks. A shape of a head she knew all so well, glinting in the reflection of a shiny stone and image of her and him standing together. She quickly flipped her hair up and looked beside her but all the company she had beside her was that of desolate smoke and background station noise. She looked back down as quickly as she looked up and there it was, the shiny black stone reflecting her with his arm around her, right there. And suddenly there was a voice that began to over through all the station. One word, load and clear; COME. It came again, more powerful than before – “Come to me Marge” The chocolate eyes beckoned.        

But too late, before she could lean forward a gust of wind came, blew her hair out of her face and pushed her backwards with such force that she fell onto the ground - her purse and bags scattered. “TRAIN TO CROSSBY STATION IS NOW ENTERING THE PLATFORM.” The big grey door was wide open in front of her shocking her out of her hallucination as she gathered her bags, smoothed her skirt and walked into the carriage.

People filed in and she saw that poor old man again, wheeling his trolley into the train. As he leaned by the door his back pressed against the handle of the trolley and it toppled over, his buns spilling all over the floor. ‘Thank god they were already packaged into brown paper bags or he would have nothing to sell, poor thing’ She thought. The old lady sitting next to her gasped as the trolley hit the ground and took her walking stick resting on the pole ahead of her, got up and started walking over to his side of the train and began to bend down, shaking to help him pick them up. As she handed a paper back to him he took it with two hands and gave her the biggest, sweetest smile Margaret had ever seen. Something lit up inside of her and she found herself smiling as well. She wondered, what drove this man to go on? To wheel his trolley day to day thin as a stick at eighty years of age. The way the lady helped him pick up his hot cross buns from the floor as she trembled with old age reminded her of the certain sense of sweetness she had found in her lovely husband. But this time thinking of him didn’t bring tears to her eyes, it made her smile. Something clicked inside her; she realized that he wasn’t the only person in the world. Something told her that love and sweetness can be found anywhere within anyone at the most surprising of times. The rickety-rackety of the train compartment begin to lull her into a lightheaded rhythm of sleep. By the time she woke she thought she saw or perhaps she had dreamt it during this long train journey - she could start see a hint of light at the end of the tunnel.