# The train driver (2)

(continuation)

The clock ticked at 5:48 in the morning when Peter began his last day of work at the service of the British Railways. It was with great nostalgia in his chest that he placed his right hand, open, over the composition, on the last day he was to drive it.

- How I miss you! - he whispered, alone, enveloped by an enormous night darkness, continuing. - But life is cycles and mine is about to end in this task. - he felt a tear trickle down his face. - It's wrong, the whole process; It is wrong to throw a person into retirement so abruptly, inhumanly,
inappropriately, without the care of a prior preparation of time-adaptedness to reality ... to our reality. Today we are valid, capable, operational. We are the force of nature, able to carry out all the needs of institution, but at the moment they inform us that we no longer hold such credentials and throw them into forms of life to which we are not formed Or formatted for the assirmos. We are routinely withdrawn, like someone withdrawing nicotine suddenly from a chronic smoker who devours more than thirty cigarettes per day. - Peter was murmuring his thoughts as he prepared and prepared the composition software to start his last working day.

6:09 p.m. Reviewer Gaston removed the key from the alert system of the train composition doors. In the cockpit, Peter saw the indication on the monitor that the doors had been locked. It was time to move on to the last trip. He put his right hand on the handle of the accelerator and pressed it forward; The composition of six carriages gave a small, faint bump, starting to move, gaining speed. The train, a regional at that time, had a definite stop at all the stations through which it was to pass until it reached St. Pancras Station. Each meter traveled was less than one meter long for retirement; Each station left behind, peered out of the corner of the eye by Peter, was one less stop on its way; Each passing viaduct, was less a nod than it was on a trip that was becoming faster than usual.

Peter looked at his wristwatch, the one Barbara had given him on his 50-year-old birthday; 7:51 in the morning.

From the control monitor, the indication of the distance of a dangerous path curve has appeared. Peter adjusted his speed, slowed it down. He turned the bend and, about two hundred yards from the approaching station, gazed at the cluster of houses that adorned the hillside.
He held on.
Throughout the years that he had passed through that mountain, he had always looked at that cluster of houses decorated by cebes trimmed at mid-height, small colorful gardens and perfectly trimmed lawns, like a place, or rather the perfect place to spend his days reform and receive the grandchildren he and Barbara so longed for. It could perfectly well be an alternative to the cottage. So he looked at him once more, and as if by instinct he had focused on one of the houses with a wardrobe facing the railway. He had written "For Sale". He had not remembered sighting that sign there before.

- Surely it would not have been there before, for if it had been, I would have seen it.- he muttered as he slowed down as he approached the station. Behind the curve, there was that beautiful hill and the house on the escarpment.

He thought of the house that was for sale and that he would have to talk to Barbara about the possibility of visiting the room when, suddenly and almost immobilizing the train, a luggage cart with a written tag appeared on the platform, where one could read " Thank you, Peter Steel", and right behind the station staff, lined up in applause, greeting him with nods. Along with them, some passengers were there every day to go on that train to London.

Despite the attempt to do so, Peter Steel could not shake the emotion and let half a dozen tears fall from the eye-bottle that held them. He wiped his right hand over his eyes in an attempt to wipe them dry.

Once again the monitor had signaled that the reviewer had removed the key from the door, indicating that the door was closed and that there were no more passengers coming in or out. He activated the handle and, behind him, left the simple homage they had paid him, at his last crossing as a train driver.

The minutes were ticking by and the clock ticked at 8:16 in the morning, when the reviewer entered the cabin where Peter was.

- Peter! - said.
- Say it! - he answered the stimulus of the call of the reviewer. - Is something wrong?
- I just want to tell you that it was a pride to me, to have shared with you more than a hundred trips in the last three years ...- the man paused for a moment, swallowing.
- Well, well, - Peter said, rising from his seat and, sensing the emotion in the man's voice, - Then, man,- he said, giving a hug to the young twenty-one-year-old colleague. Age - The world does not end here. He reassured him.
- I know that, Peter! But to see you leave here, so ... you know? You were the father I did not have. You helped me at the beginning of my walk, you gave me your hand and you taught me how to proceed in the face of adversity ... I will never forget! - he wiped the tears.

- You know ... you're a good kid! Humble, hardworking, friendly, available. You'll have all the luck in the world in your long life ahead of you. What I did for you, as I said, is nothing that you did not do for me, or that you do not do for who, one day, who knows, cross your path and need. - he paused, looked at the control commands of the train, which was running at a speed of 19 miles, and looked back at the young man. - This is my last journey, but we will continue to be friends. We'll have some beers and laugh with all the adventures we've gone through and you're about to pass.
- That's right, my good friend. Said the young man.

(to be continued)