The Last Train to Maybe

How it begins

Rose had made the protest sign too wide for the train.

Daniel held the door while she turned it sideways.

"An argument for better rolling stock," she said.

"Or smaller lettering."

She recognized his voice before she saw the railway badge.

The timetable planner.

The man who had described their branch line as a legacy liability in a meeting where three people had cried.

He helped her lift the sign anyway.

The carriage contained one sleeping student, a nurse eating a sandwich and a man transporting an enormous fern. Rose had tried to recruit all three to the campaign.

The fern had shown the most enthusiasm.

Daniel took the seat opposite her.

"You're traveling to the terminus?"

"I'm collecting evidence."

"So am I."

She looked at his notebook.

"I assume yours costs more."

The train moved with a shudder that seemed to support his argument.

Outside, fields opened beneath a pale evening sky. Every village along the route had contributed something to Rose's life. A job. A friend. Her mother's last birthday lunch.

Numbers did not know what they were removing.

Daniel looked up as the guard entered.

"How many concession tickets tonight?"

The guard hesitated.

"Which sort?"

"All sorts."

"They don't all go in the same system."

Rose stopped arranging her sign.

Daniel's pen stopped too.

At the next station, the nurse stood.

"Will there still be a train back from the hospital?" she asked.

Neither of them answered immediately.

The timetable on Daniel's tablet showed an empty space after nine.

Rose had seen that space before. She had called it inconvenient.

Now she watched the nurse fold her sandwich carefully into its paper.

Daniel closed the tablet.

"Can I ask what time your shift ends?"

Rose moved her protest sign from the seat beside her.

For the rest of the journey, they worked from the same notebook.