Flash! Fiction 3 by Peter McMillan - HTML preview

66

I Couldn't Help Overhearing

Could anyone else hear them? Not just the conversations, but the whispers and the words not spoken. All of sudden, I could.

Amidst the swirling sounds of a train station at rush hour, I could hear them, sense them—whispers and unarticulated thoughts—and some I could make out.

"Call me as soon as you get in?" asked the man who was sitting behind me, facing the timetable of arrivals and departures.

"Sure, honey, but I'd rather call you from the hotel, so it may be kind of late."

"That's alright, I'll be up late reading tonight anyway."

What she whispered under her breath made it plain as day to me, but apparently not to him, that she was leaving him. Could be he wasn't paying attention.

A boy scout troop was moving through the concourse like a swarm of bees.

"It's way different than the subway. I once went to Chicago. That train—it had a locomotive—was big and fast and there was food service and places to sleep. Nothing like the subway."

The chubby youngster found himself marshalling a flock of wide-eyed little boys who were too entranced to pick up the menacing chuckle I heard, or thought I heard.

Seated next to me, a couple was talking marriage.