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Language:
English
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Published:
2024-08-10
Words:
973
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
12
Kudos:
50
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5
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338

in passing

Summary:

"they died 20 years ago, seperately, as far as I can tell they didn't even meet." Well what if they could have met?

Notes:

alternative title for this would have been "an ode to AUs". Do with that what you will

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

He steps onto the platform.
There is nothing new about The London Underground. There is nothing to mark this day as something to stand out. He won’t remember this day in a week.
His occupation is not important, neither is his name or his grandmother’s name (who he’s going to visit) or his appearance or his history. All that is important is that he is a person standing here today, on this platform, getting into this car.
He steps through the doors several minutes before need be and takes a seat in the middle row. He sits and waits for the subtle sound of people shuffling in, their voices lowered from the cold and the pessimism. He feels a little disappointed, as he always does, that he does not have a car to himself. This inconceivable notion was one he has held onto since the very first time his grandmother allowed him on the underground, earlier than most children. He has always felt the need to be recognised as something… no, not special, but separate. He’s always felt separate. Not different, not unique, not that secret feeling that everyone houses of some undiscovered talent or abnormality, waiting for itself to be made known by some miraculous coincidence. No he feels separate. Like somehow he didn’t have all the pieces or had different pieces than everyone thought he did. He has learned to be content with this feeling, but, from time to time, he indulges himself, allowing that secret notion to rear its head and hope an impossible hope of being recognised among the company of the mundane, without the twangs and jitters of people, of life. He’s always felt a danger to them somehow.
Alas, the car fills. Not more or less than usual, but just teetering on the edge of discomfort.
Another person gets into the car, another person among the thrum of the people, at the regular time. His occupation is not important, his appearance is not important, the destination of his journey is not important. He is not important to the separate man in any way. He sits towards the front of the car, he reads an article on his phone about something or other and the duration of the short, average journey is spent like this. Nothing of note happens.
In another place, in another universe, these two people would sit next to each other, maybe even have a short, curt conversion. In another universe, one would spill his coffee on the other and it would have been terribly awkward. In another universe, they would be friends, lovers even. They would work at the same place, an academic institute, a research project, a coffee shop perhaps, and then they would slowly warm up to each other over time, resulting in hilarious, romcom level misunderstandings, until they eventually stop being cowards and admit their feelings. In another universe one of them dies right here and now of an aneurysm or heart condition he has no idea he’s even had.
In another universe, the separate man would look forward to the person several seats in front of him and take notice of the back of his soft, lightly- freckled neck and wonder if his face housed the same complexion. Take notice of the way he looked out the window, despite the desperate, grey whooshing of the dark tunnel walls, with a smile on his face, visible only slightly from behind his slightly scraggly beard and strawberry blonde hair, and wondered if he’d ever smiled at a lover like he did at that wall. Take notice of the dead skin around cuticles and his short, thick hands and hope that he picked at it, so he wouldn’t be alone in another habit.
In another universe, the other man would turn around and be fascinated by the short, hunching figure behind him. By his small, deep- set eyes that housed all the universe, but so far and dense as to be impossible to decipher. By his thin legs that dangled several feet above the ground, and his old, leather boots that looked weary and full of stories. By the way he ran his thumb in a zigzag between his knuckles, names of all the months with 30 days drifting lazily across his mouth, never raising to a hearable level.
The separate man would see him staring and look pointedly at him until he sheepishly dropped his eyes and turned his head, returning to his wall. Or maybe, by some coincidental confidence, the man in front would smile at him and they would smile at each other. Maybe they would meet for coffee the following day, maybe they would go on the rest of their lives thinking about this moment, wishing they’d done something else than sit and stare dumbly at the other awkward stranger, the other unashamed watcher.
In another universe, they would meet earlier, college, high school even, they would have shared a bed for one night, a dorm for a semester. They would be childhood friends who never reconnected. They would be competitors in a cricket match, though neither had been the type for sport growing up.
In another universe, they would meet later. Perhaps walking with their dogs or their children, remarking on the weather, just to be polite. They would meet in the hospital, on a sick or dying day, each given a window into the ugly final days. Meet on a flight to a well- deserved retirement.
But, in this universe, they do not meet. Their names, their occupations, their appearances, their grievances, their educations, their past lovers, their current lovers, their mothers, their houses, their destinations, their journeys; it is all deeply and utterly rendered unimportant.
All because what these two people could’ve been is not who they are and this day is much like any other.

Notes:

this was very much an experiment but I kind of feel in love with it.