He hadn't ridden a commuter train in eight years. He lived in Moscow, spending all his time in the metro, taking planes for vacations, visiting his university friends by train, his school friends by tram, and, if he ever went to visit his parents on the outskirts of the region, it was only in his stepbrother's car.
He barely even thought about why this was so, and if a question suddenly surfaced in his subconscious, it was immediately drowned out by memories of smoke-filled vestibules, strange shoulders, and a heavy backpack on his back—in his student years, he had to travel every day, so it was no wonder he'd suddenly lost it.
One day, it happened that his favorite band, which had completely disappeared from the country for the past three years, suddenly decided to tour the Moscow region—as if deliberately choosing regions where buses didn't go, the metro hadn't yet reached, and the highways were either overloaded for three years or had been repaired thirty years ago. His friends with cars merely twirled their fingers at their temples: "Don't even think about it, it's a shame about iron horses, and we don't listen to that kind of thing." His friends without cars weren't eager to join him either, so he found himself alone on a Saturday evening at the train station of his childhood.
The anticipation of the concert was slightly dampened by the sweet memories that flowed steadily into his head with every beggar and every broken turnstile. Then, dusk thickened outside the train window, and something vague and ominous began to seep into the dance of frozen carriages and third retakes, but then the train pulled into the right station, and he, relieved, joined the stream of fans confidently flowing toward their cherished destination.
After the concert, he was in no hurry to leave. He wandered around the city, savoring the experience: he hadn't been to anything like this for five years, sometimes with work or family, and somehow imperceptibly missed the stream of Moscow fans hurrying to catch the fast commuter train. Then he spent a long time at the ticket counter, scraping change from his pockets, and left almost on the very last train, shortly before midnight. As he boarded the train, he managed to think, "Hello, youth..." and collapsed into the first available seat, fiddling with his phone, squeezing his eyes shut and praying that the image in his head wouldn't come to fruition.
His parents lived on the same line, but a couple of stops closer to the capital, and he often returned home on the last commuter trains, but never the midnight commute to Moscow. And soon after graduating, he stopped by his family's place, managed to get into a fight with everyone, and headed back to his rented apartment for the night—also on the last train. And for some reason, he found himself completely alone in the train car.
Unfazed, he sat down facing the rear somewhere in the middle, closed his eyes, watering from the bright lights, and was almost asleep to the familiar clatter of the wheels when he heard quiet, measured footsteps behind him.
He knew very well that at that hour, few people would be walking around the train cars, either because they couldn't find a seat, were running from sleepy ticket collectors, or were trying to sell something. Besides, they would all be stomping their feet on the floor much louder and more erratically. For some reason, he was afraid to turn around. But he really wanted to.
He took his phone out of his pocket and peered at the reflection on its screen: something short and stocky, wearing a dark hooded jacket, was walking down the aisle. It moved slowly, as if space stretched out before it, passing no more than a single compartment in thirty seconds—but still, it moved. And perhaps it had no intention of passing by.
The train stopped abruptly, and a cheerful old man with a backpack slung over his shoulders entered. He walked between the seats, somewhere behind the sole passenger, cracked his knuckles as if he were flicking someone, returned, and sat down opposite his fellow passenger, who was suddenly overcome with superstitious horror at what he had seen.
"Calm down," the old man said. "I put him in his place."
"W-who?" was all the student who had been studying yesterday managed to utter.
"Well, that Thirteenth Controller," the old man waved his hand dismissively, and, meeting her frightened gaze, explained, "He once made a mistake in the world, and never realized it. So now he wanders around at night, peering into people's souls, as is customary there." "We're not used to this," he sighed. "The heart can break if the soul lies deep. You're lucky you didn't look at him."
The old man turned out to be cheerful, and spent the entire ride to Moscow telling him how he'd drank tea on the night train the previous night and how the brownies were rebelling in the metro, forced to feed on rats. By the time he reached his apartment, the frightened graduate remembered little except that he'd had some kind of delirious dream on the train and should probably call home in the morning and apologize. But since then, for some reason, he'd only visited his parents with his brother, by car.
And now, eight years later, he took a shuddering breath, opened his eyes, and looked around: lucky, this time he wasn't alone in the car. A couple of seats away, an old man sat with his back to him, carrying a very familiar, albeit rather battered, backpack. Every instinct demanded that I move over to him: I just needed to step louder so that he wouldn’t hit me in the nose.
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