Commute

Herman almost bumped into a dwarf when he crossed the train gates at a run. That would have been rude, since dwarfs do not like being bumped, as everybody knows. For the first time in years, he had overslept. Somehow he had missed the alarm completely, and of course it had to be today. Today the boss would introduce the new editor at the Echo, and arriving late would certainly look “no good”. But, as he slowly fought to regain his breath, he thought that missing his train would have also meant missing her.

Herman didn’t know her name, but this he knew: he was madly in love. Yes, it was absurd. Yes, it was so teen. But he couldn’t help it. One stop, only one, to go and she would come into the train. And his heart thumped so loud (what if she misses the train today?) that he was acutely aware of the lycanthrope that always stared at him up from her ebook from the next row of seats, as if she could hear it. Which she probably could.

The train stopped, and in she came. Damn, she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, and one tended to see many. Elves always wore their glamour around them, for instance, but she was a pixie, and so her beauty was natural. Herman could not help but feel a punch in his belly when she smiled at him. Not at him, he knew, since she always smiled. Maybe it was a defence mechanism: other creatures tended to shun pixies because of their mind-reading powers. But it was all absurd, Herman knew: pixies really only picked up thoughts sent at them. And everybody could wear a protective amulet nowadays, just like the one round his neck…

The image of his amulet, forgotten beside the shower as he left home in a hurry, flashed before Herman’s eyes. He was not wearing it.

She was staring at him. She was not smiling but smirking. At him.

Oh my, she knows. She knows.

Herman panicked. He noticed that the train had stopped and he left in a hurry, barely avoiding getting trapped in the sliding doors. He was painfully aware of her stare, all the time fixed on him. He ran up the stairs and left the platform. He didn’t even consider taking the next train.

Herman only managed to relax a bit once he had boarded a taxi and told the sprite driver to take him to the Echo office. The car roared on but got stuck in the traffic after a couple of turns. That suited Herman for a while until he checked the time on his smartphone and realized that, after all, he was going to be late. He tried to reach Alana, the editor who had got promoted, on her phone, but to no avail.

Fifteen minutes later, Herman paid the sprite and left the taxi at a run. He arrived at the Echo half an hour late. Alana must have already introduced the new editor to the whole editorial staff… except himself, of course. He could argue he had been following a lead, but Alana would catch his lie. She always did.

He nodded towards the receptionists while mumbling a greeting, and went straight to Alana’s office. She knocked on her door and pushed it open, as she has always instructed them.

“Alana, it’s me,” he said. “Sorry I’m late, but…”

Herman froze, and felt his cheeks ablaze.

The woman behind Alana’s desk was not Alana. It was her.

The pixie from the train.

~~~~

This is my entry for the Weekly Writing Exercise: August 31-September 6, 2015 at the Writer’s Discussion Group in Google+.

This is a world where all kinds of fantastic creatures live together with humans in the modern age. And for some reason I decided that it would be better if I gave the stories here a humourous twist, so I just went on with that idea and had a bit of fun with this one.

This story shares the universe of another of my stories that can be found here on medium, Twelve Days of Fiction, Day Four: Newbie.