Enigma
This is a short piece of fiction that lives in the space between anticipation and arrival.
Enigma could not tell whether it was the chill in the night air or the excitement of seeing her best friend after so long that had caused the goosebumps now raised all along her arms. Truthfully, it could have been either one of the two that elicited such a response, but something inside of her was telling her that it was a bit of both, not solely one or the other. She thrust her hands deep into her jacket pockets, shielding them from the late October wind that now whipped her curls wildly in the air around her head. In her haste to leave her apartment, she had forgotten to grab a pair of gloves, and it had only taken her two blocks down from her place to realize that she had been so electrified by excitement that she hadn’t even brought her phone along either. By then, the train station was only three blocks more, and the area had been nothing but safe to her since she had moved in last fall. The sky, a vast void lit up just barely by the slivers of moon and stars that fought to break through the multitude of clouds, made her feel at peace.
Peace had been elusive only up until she’d made the decision to come here. It was if by just making the decision, the storms had calmed. That wasn’t to say that she was problem free, but here in the city, in the crisp air, no longer surrounded by the chaos of responsibility to issues that were never really her own, she could think and breathe and be free. For a brief moment she wondered if seeing Chance would bring back the weighted feelings from back home, but she quickly shook the thought off. Even when she was back home, carrying baggage that was not hers, Chance had been her peace. He’d been there offering to shoulder the load, even when his own seemed heavier. Maybe he would find his peace here too.
She grinned as she thought of him, her pace slower now. A gust of wind threatened to push her the full length back to her place, but she pressed on, semi-lost in her thoughts, and still very aware of her surroundings. She was almost there, her breath, slightly hitched from the effort of the last hill reminded her of the journey not just to the station but to here. It had taken a lot of effort, but in true Enigma fashion, she’d gotten it done. On her own. That thought usually brought about sadness, but tonight, it gave her the push that she needed to keep going, one foot in front of the other.
She could see the station now. She’d been enamored with it since she had first set eyes on it. Where she came from, buildings just weren’t this big. Just like change, this building was huge. Big enough for her to get lost in, much like the space in her mind.
As she crossed the street and became level with the building, she resisted the urge to stop and stare through the windows. There was something sacred about entering with no preview, something holy about walking into both the expected but still unknown. As she made her way down the sidewalk and towards the door, she felt that familiar sense of settlement in her heart, and the fluttering of excitement in her belly. And as she stood in front of the entrance of the station she knew that stepping inside would be but another step forward.