The Train That Never Came

It was a rainy Thursday when Noor reached the deserted railway station of Chanar. Time stood still here. The station clock had stopped ticking years ago, but people still glanced at it out of habit—hoping maybe, like the train, time would also come back someday.

Noor, wrapped in a faded blue shawl, held an old letter in her hand — creased, yellow, and fragile like her hope. She had come here every Thursday for the last 17 years, waiting for the same train. The one that left with him.

His name was Zayan.

They were childhood friends. Grew up in the narrow, rain-soaked streets of old Lahore, chasing kites in the spring, stealing mangoes in summer, and sharing dreams in the dim flicker of lantern light during the long power outages. Their bond wasn’t loud or dramatic. It was quiet, like a secret prayer whispered before sleep.

They had no need for confessions. They never said, “I love you.” They never had to.

The whole mohalla knew they were meant to be. Even their parents, once skeptical, had begun to understand — maybe even hope. Life was good, and simple. Until it wasn’t.

Zayan got a job offer in Karachi — a big break. The kind of opportunity boys from small towns only dreamed of.

“I’ll go,” he said, “but only for a few weeks. Then I’ll come back. With something solid in hand. A job. A future. And next time, I’ll come not just for you, but to ask for you.”

Noor smiled through her tears. “Promise me?”

“Next Thursday,” he whispered, holding her hand tightly at the station, “I’ll be back. And I’ll never leave again.”

That Thursday never came.

The train didn’t return.

Noor waited. First with hope, then with worry. Days turned into weeks. Weeks into years.

No calls. No letters. No Zayan.

People said he moved on. That he found someone else in the city. Others whispered he died in an accident. Some claimed he simply forgot her.

But Noor didn’t believe them.

She couldn’t.

She kept coming every Thursday to the station, dressed in that same blue shawl he once said made her look like the sky at dawn. She brought with her the letter he had left, the only one — written just before boarding the train:

"Don't wait too long. Life is cruel to those who stand still. But I’ll be back before you blink."

Irony.

The world moved on. Friends got married. Her siblings grew distant. Her parents died — still believing their daughter was living in some dream. She became “that mad girl from Chanar station.” Children laughed at her. Shopkeepers pitied her.

But she never stopped waiting.

Then, on her 35th birthday, something changed. A rusted postman’s bicycle rattled into her lane. He handed her an envelope, no sender, no return address.

Inside, just one line:
“If I told you the truth, would you still wait?”

Noor froze. The handwriting was unmistakable.

It was him.

The following Thursday, she didn’t just wait — she searched. She asked every vendor, every porter, every soul who had once known him. That’s when she met Babu — the old porter with trembling hands and tired eyes.

“You still waitin’, beti?” he asked kindly.

“Yes,” she nodded.

He looked down. “I think I owe you the truth.”

Her heart stopped.

“Zayan did come back. Three Thursdays later. I remember it like yesterday. It was raining just like today. He looked like death — pale, soaked, trembling.”

“What happened?” she whispered.

“Your father sent him away. Told him you were married. That you had forgotten him.”

Noor staggered back.

“He cried,” Babu continued, “like a child who’d lost everything. Said he never imagined you'd give up so easily. He left me a note for you. But your abba saw it… and burned it.”

Noor collapsed onto the bench, her knees weak.

“I tried to stop him,” Babu said softly. “But I was just a servant.”

She felt everything collapse. The weight of 17 years of waiting for a man who had, in fact, come back. A reunion that never happened because of a lie. A life spent mourning someone who had mourned her too.

“Where did he go?”

“No one knows. Just said he’d disappear. That ‘the tracks are cursed.’ That he’d never return to a place where love was punished.”

Noor didn’t cry. There were no tears left. She got up slowly, straightened her shawl, and walked down the rusted tracks — like a ghost retracing the past.

The tunnel ahead was dark, overgrown, almost forgotten by time.

Then, a silhouette emerged.

A man, older now. His hair grey, his frame thinner. But his eyes — those same eyes — still searching.

Zayan.

They stood in silence.

He held a crumpled photograph in his hand — of her, from years ago, in that blue shawl.

“I came every year,” he said quietly. “But I never had the courage to face what I thought was true — that you forgot me.”

“I never did,” she replied. “Not for a second.”

He broke. Years of pain and longing flowed in a single tear down his cheek. She stepped forward, placing the old letter in his hand.

He opened it.

Two words:
“Still waiting.”

And just like that, the abandoned platform saw something it hadn’t in years — love that survived betrayal, silence, and time.

As they embraced, the broken station clock began to tick again.