Diary fragment · 2 min read ·
The Cashier at Ostmark Station
A ticket cashier at Ostmark station keeps a diary of the travellers who buy tickets for trains that have not run for decades, and he is beginning to recognise the faces of the people who never board.
- dated: The grey months of the timetable change
- narrator: Desmond Quayle, ticket cashier
- reliability: unreliable
Monday. Quiet morning. Sold a return to Lindenstrasse for a woman in a green coat. She paid in cash, very exact, and asked whether the eleven-fifteen was on time. I said the eleven-fifteen had not run since the line was closed in 1974. She laughed and said she knew, and that was why she wanted to be sure.
Tuesday. A young man bought a single to the junction, to the stop that is marked on the board but not on the map. He said he was meeting his brother there. I asked which brother. He said the one who had gone on ahead.
Wednesday. The regular from the pensioners' bus came in at nine and bought his usual, a day return to Saint Verel's Halt, which is a platform and a bench under a rusted canopy. He said his wife would be waiting. I said I hoped she was well. He said she had been well for thirty years, and that he always bought her ticket too.
Thursday. A girl of about nine came to the window with a handful of coins and asked for the cheapest ticket to anywhere. I asked her where she was going. She said home, and gave me an address on Tern Street that does not exist. I gave her a ticket to Tern Street anyway. She thanked me and walked out through the barrier onto the empty platform, and the lamps flickered once as she passed them.
Friday. Checked the cash drawer at closing. There were eleven tickets in it that I had not sold, all for departures from platforms that have been fenced off since the war. All were paid in full, in coins of different reigns, and all were dated for today.
Saturday. I have started to keep a list of the faces. Some of them I have seen only once. Some of them come back every week, always buying the same ticket, always to the same stop, and always, when I look up from the window, already standing at the barrier, facing the empty line, waiting for a train that will take them somewhere I am not allowed to sell.