The Book on Seat 14

Mara took the same train to work every morning. One Tuesday she noticed a paperback on seat 14, its cover faded and its corners softened by years of handling. She looked around for the owner, but the carriage was almost deserted.

She opened it and found pencil marks running down the margins. Someone had added small comments beside the sentences, in a neat, slanting hand. Next to a sad scene was written: “I cried here. Don’t tell anyone.” Mara smiled in spite of herself.

She kept the book for a week, but nobody asked for it. Then, on an impulse she could not quite explain, she took a pencil from her bag and wrote beneath the confession: “Your secret is safe. I laughed here instead.” On Friday she left the book on seat 14 and stepped off the train at her stop, feeling oddly guilty.

On Monday the book was there again. Mara’s heart beat faster as she read the new line in pencil: “Seat 14 is lucky. Do you read the end first?” She laughed out loud, and an elderly passenger peered at her over the top of his newspaper.

For three weeks they carried on their conversation in the margins, discussing the story, the weather and the dreadful coffee at the station. Mara never once caught sight of the other reader. Then, on the final page, she came across a different message: “I leave this train tomorrow. I’m the one in the grey scarf.”

The next morning Mara scrutinised every passenger in the carriage. Near the door stood a young man in a grey scarf, a pencil tucked behind his ear. He glanced at the book in her hands, and a slow smile spread across his face.