Last Words

He’d dived under the train. I saw him do it.

We’d been stuck between stations for forty-five minutes while they cleaned his body off the tracks. He must have been far behind us by the time the train came to a stop.

He and I both got on at the same station, on the same carriage. I’d seen him wander up towards the door that linked our compartment to the one in front—that I drunkenly pissed out of late one night—when he stopped to talk to a girl sitting by herself in one of the double seats. It was only for a moment but, turning away, he’d opened the door, let it slap shut behind him and dropped below.

There were gasps and cries from the people who saw it, and strange, quizzical looks from those who felt his body sliced between the wheels and the rails beneath. Who would’ve thought flesh and bone would ever cause the slightest disturbance under all that metal?

The driver must have felt it too, or maybe trains have detection sensors or something below, for the train immediately reduced its speed and came to a stop halfway between Richmond and Flinders Street Station. At first we all sat there in silence, but after about five minutes the carriage was completely abuzz with chatter. The voice of the driver came over the PA, his speech stilted, sounding as though he were reading from cue cards.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve come to a stop in our regular schedule because an individual has been killed on the tracks. His remains are currently and respectfully being removed. Until this has happened, we will not be departing. I apologise for any inconvenience.’

It was a few minutes until the chatter started up again. While we waited, I focused on the girl up the other end of the carriage. She was the last person to speak to him. She seemed distressed, and while the rest of the commuters had no problem turning to the person next to them with a thought or for an opinion, she was all alone. I wanted desperately to walk all the way up there and sit down next to her. At first I pretended it was a deep sense of altruism inside, but I had to admit that comforting her would not have been my goal. What I wanted was to ask her what the dead man had said, what his final words were.

Initially I thought that he probably just asked her for spare change, but the way in which she sat, her posture rigid, her head tilted downward, lost to some eventuality, made me think that whatever it was the dead man said had had quite an effect on her. Was it a plea for more quantifiable help than just a few extra dollars? Or was it something more cryptic? Did he know that they would be the last words he would ever speak and intentionally make them resonant or meaningful or enigmatic? I wanted desperately to know. But it didn’t seem appropriate to just walk up to her and demand answers.

A woman behind me spoke to the man next to her in a low tone. ‘It’s horrible I know, but why do we have to wait? Its behind us already.’

For a moment I completely misunderstood and thought that she was referring to the awful event that all of us had in a way been a part of, not because it had inconvenienced us, but because we had witnessed true desperation and needed to move forward in order to cope with such harsh reality. But then I quickly realised that within the words ‘Its behind us already’ she was referring to the physical body of the man no longer a man. Just a thing, ripped apart, unrecognisable as anything that never contained a spark inside. I also wondered why she needed to ask what the point of waiting was. The answer was apparent from the driver’s pre-written speech: it was the respectful thing to do. Though he was behind us, his blood was still beneath us, clinging to and smeared all over the wheels and along the tracks. And we could stand to wait until the evidence of his final statement had been quickly cleaned up like a chemical spill, as though it never happened.

The train sat for another half hour, and my eyes kept coming back to her. I got to know her expression very well, inward-looking, not in the present but stuck in the recent past. If it weren’t for the circumstances... okay, so now I can say that regardless of the circumstances, I found her pretty. Her face was roundish, with dark bulbous eyes, and her lips curved down into a natural frown. To see her smile must have been rare and exciting. Her hair hung straight down the sides of her face to just below her chin, framing it quite perfectly, and she wore a black hat high up on top of her head. She looked up every so often, but she never saw me.

The train finally started up, and a collective sigh of relief—that I wish I could erase—spread through the carriage. The voice of the driver came over the loudspeaker again, stating that the police were waiting at the platform to speak to witnesses and offer counselling. At the word ‘witnesses’, I looked to her but she hadn’t seemed to hear a single word.

The train moved almost cautiously towards Flinders Street. I made up my mind that I would ask her what the dead man had said. I didn’t know exactly how I would phrase it, or how tactful it would be, but I had to know. It was a mystery that I couldn’t let pass. I foolishly felt it was my duty, as though she couldn’t be trusted with such an important task as being the sole ward to a legacy summed up in a few words. I must shoulder the burden of it, take it from her and become the keeper of this man’s final thought, a flickering flame that I would keep burning bright. Maybe I would whisper it to those I trusted as a mark of confidence, or maybe I would tell everyone, spread it to all those who would listen, an urban disciple.

She didn’t stand up until the train came to a complete stop. Commuters filed out onto the platform, and once a gap in the crowd appeared, she broke away, walking right past the waiting detectives and uniformed officers. Rather than taking the escalators up to the station, she walked down the steps that lead under Flinders to Degraves Street. I followed quickly behind, not wanting to lose her.

She walked brusquely, heels clapping the tiles and echoing in the underground. Near the ticket machines she stopped, fumbling with her bag. I decided that this was my chance. I raced after her and, stopping at the ticket machine, reached out and tapped her shoulder. She turned slowly, as though expecting someone she knew, then quickly looked me up and down.

‘Yeah?’

‘Hi. I was on the train with you just then. Did you see me?’

‘No.’

‘Well, are you okay?’

‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘I... I saw that he spoke to you.’

‘Who?’

‘The man. The man that jumped.’

‘Oh. Yeah, he spoke to me.’

‘This is going to seem really... would you tell me what he said?’

She hesitated, wincing a little at the thought.

‘It’s important.’

‘Why?’ she said, her eyes widening suddenly, as though I might have answers instead of just a question.

‘Because… because I really want to know.’

She sighed. ‘He asked me for a smoke.’

Something inside instantly sank, as though it was never there.

‘Well thanks.’

I turned to walk back up to the platform, but her voice rang out in the empty tunnel.

‘I had one left.’

I turned around. ‘What?’

‘I had one cigarette left. But I didn’t give it to him.’ She trembled, her natural frown growing further downward.

I walked up close to her, touching her shoulders, feeling as though it was the right thing to do. She felt it too, for she eased, as though my gentle touch was not only steadying but holding her upright.

‘It’s okay. I’m sure it wouldn’t have made a difference either way.’