"The Mercy of the Missed Train."

Long time ago, one cold morning in late November to be precise, I missed my train.

It was not just any train, it was the very one. This was the train that was supposed to bring me luck on my out-of-the world job interview. I remember my frantic running to the station, my breath being visible in the cold air, my bag hitting against my knee and the clock showing 8:59. The doors were already closed in front of me.

At first, I just stood there - catching my breath, and brain working at full capacity but not coming up with a solution to my problem. That train slowly moved away with what I considered to be my last opportunity. I sat down on a bench nearby, totally powerless, and lost in my thoughts.

An old man with a little paper bag came and sat next to me. He was wearing a worn-out coat and his shoe was dirty with mud. He smiled at me and said, "Did you also miss it?"

I nodded quietly.

He laughed a little. "You know, I once thought that by losing something we would lose something else as well. However, life has a peculiar way of teaching us that sometimes the things we lose are the ones that ultimately save us."

I was quite at a loss for words. Seeing me like that he took some sandwiches out of his paper bag. "Hungry?"

I refused his offer politely but he didn't take no for an answer. "It seems that you haven't had your breakfast. Just take it."

Thus, I took it from him. It was good and warm. He told me his name was Thomas. He was a train driver for forty years and after his wife's death, he retired. He used to come to the station every morning out of habit - to watch the people who came and went, and to remember the life he once had.

We talked for more than an hour. He told me the stories of the people who took the trains and never came back, and those who died because of their punctuality. Then he said something that I still can't forget:

I gave him a polite smile but I didn’t really get what he was saying.

After a while, another train came, and I boarded it to the city. I was so late that I didn’t manage to make it to the interview. The receptionist informed me that the manager had already left and that there was nothing they could do. I went back home with a heavy heart, feeling as if life had just closed a door in my face.

That night, I switched on the television, and I could not move an inch.

An announcement on the TV informed that a terrible accident had taken place early that morning. The same 9:00 AM train that I was supposed to take but which I had missed had gone off the rails due to a technical failure. Several passengers were seriously hurt, and three people died.

I couldn’t control my tremors. I looked at the TV in total disbelief. It was a place I could have been. It was a place I should have been.

I kept mulling over the old man called Thomas who sat next to me and seemed to know something that I didn’t for days. The following day, I went back to the train station, and I was hoping to see him there again.

Thomas was not there.

I searched for him but to no avail. I spoke to the coffee vendor, the ticket clerk, and the cleaner. None of them had seen him. None of them had ever come across an old man named Thomas who used to come there every morning.

Time went by. One day I came across a small folded piece of paper lying between the bench slats where we had been sitting.

The note read:

> “Not all missed trains are losses. Some are mercies.”

There was no name. There was no signature. Just those words.

It was the turning point in his life after which everything was different. He ceased to rush through life as if it was within his power to control every turn of the road. He became more aware of people – their faces, their stories, their suffering. He started going to the local shelter on a voluntary basis, offering his help to travellers and the homeless, the lost and the forgotten ones.

There are times when I see a person running madly in an effort to seize a bus or a train and I tell him in an almost inaudible voice that if he were to miss it maybe it would not be the end.

I never saw Thomas again. Perhaps he was real, perhaps not. However, every time I walk past that bench in the morning, I sense his company.

Which reminds me that the day when I thought I had lost everything was actually the day I was saved.

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💭 The point of the story:

The delays that come with life shouldn’t always be viewed as punishments. They could be a form of protection. The train that leaves you behind might be the very one you weren’t meant to take.