The Book on Seat 14

Mara took the same train to work every morning. One Tuesday she noticed a paperback book on seat 14. The cover was worn and the corners were soft from years of reading. She looked around for the owner, but the carriage was almost empty.

She opened the book and discovered pencil marks in the margins. Someone had written small comments next to the sentences. Beside a sad scene, a neat hand had written, “I cried here. Don’t tell anyone.” Mara smiled to herself.

She kept the book for a week, but nobody asked for it. Then she did something rather silly. She took a pencil from her bag and wrote underneath the comment, “Your secret is safe. I laughed here instead.” On Friday she left the book on seat 14 and got off at her stop.

On Monday the book was there again. Mara felt her heart beat faster. A new line in pencil said, “Seat 14 is lucky. Do you read the end first?” She laughed out loud, and an elderly passenger looked at her over his newspaper.

For three weeks they wrote to each other in the margins about the story, the weather and the terrible coffee at the station. Mara never saw the other reader. Then, on the last page, she found a different message: “I leave this train tomorrow. I’m the one with the grey scarf.”

The next morning Mara studied every passenger. Near the door, a young man was standing with a grey scarf and a pencil behind his ear. He glanced at the book in her hands and smiled.