The Glove (5)

Immediately she saw him. Their eyes met like fire across the middle distance between them. She didn’t notice anything else about him being except what he held in his hand.

He’d parked the car, two car spaces from the glass recycling containers. His old vehicle too valuable for his memories to be ruined by an accidentally dropped glass, or container. He was a little early for his tram. He could have parked at another station nearer to his final destination, but always chose further along the line in the opposite direction to avoid the crush of commuters searching like treasure hunters, for a seat.

He could have driven the whole way to his press office, but the queues of traffic, the race for parking, and the beetle eyed mania that was city driving had never appealed to him.

He had a few minutes. Switched off the engine. Pulled the handbrake. Switched off the radio after the news, the traffic and then the weather, and sat for a few minutes in the shrinking silence waiting to see the tram come from his right so he could time his walk to the platform. 

It was almost light. He could see the last stars fading, the sun, a mere whisper of rose coloured light behind the foggy blush of dissipating clouds. And there it was. An eye of yellow white light leading carriages, pushing back the empty darkness into an invisible wind.

He got out of the car, slammed the door with more than his usual vigour, opened the boot, pulled out his bag, let the lid fall with a reassuring thud and walked up the glass splintered incline onto the platform edge.

He saw it on the frosted bench. Someone had obviously picked it up off the platform and placed it there. Slim, well cared for a few creases of semi regular use. A woman’s glove. A shame too, to leave it behind. He picked it up, soft and not yet frozen, it had a soft fragrance, unmistakably subtle, a bouquet of morning flowers.

The tram roared and rattled to a stop.He debated within himself. To pick it up. Or leave it. Chances are she would come back for it. And maybe it wasn’t her usual stop. Or maybe someone found it on the tram and got out and left it here?

He heard the doors open. The hiss of escaping air. Decision made. He picked it up and stepped in to the closing gap of doors and into the warmth and bubble of light.

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