The Platform
I woke up at six. Not because I wanted to, but because I had to. The train waits for no one, not even those who don’t know if they still want to get where they’re going. That’s why I went to bed early: not out of responsibility, but out of fear of missing something I’m not even sure I want. The alarm rang briefly, sharply, like a sentence. Now I’m awake. Mechanically dressed. Ready to go out.
I went out.
The cold hit me directly, without warning. The fog was thick, sticky, like a thought you can’t escape. Still, I wasn’t afraid of getting lost. I know the way to the station by heart. There are roads we know so well that we travel them without being present in them — like lives lived on autopilot.
I walked. A few silent steps through the fog so dense that, for a moment, it crossed my mind that I could disappear into it. Get lost. Never get anywhere. Start a new life in a city that doesn’t know me and doesn’t ask me anything. The thought was brief, but dangerously soothing.
I arrived.
The platform was empty. There was an oppressive silence, the kind that doesn’t calm you down, but forces you to hear yourself. The wind blew slowly, like tired breathing. That was it. No other evidence that the world was still functioning.
Through the fog, I saw a small light. Barely visible. A fragile spark that rose slowly, faded, and reappeared, as if struggling to exist. I approached. The light grew, reigniting with a stubbornness that surprised me.
It was an old man. He sat motionless and smoked quietly, as if time, for him, was no longer in a hurry. The cigarette smoke mingled with the fog, and for a moment I no longer knew where one ended and the other began. Then I felt something strange: not loneliness, but suspense. As if, in this cold and empty place, a truth was about to be told that you don’t tell those who know you.
I sat down next to him without saying anything. Sometimes silence is the safest form of defense. After a few seconds, he spoke.
— Early today.
I nodded. A response short enough not to invite further questions. But old people don’t respect the boundaries we set for ourselves. He asked me where I was going, what I was doing, if I was okay. Simple questions, the kind that don’t seem dangerous. I answered listlessly, with half-truths, just to get away.
Then he started talking.
About what the station used to be like. About people leaving without knowing if they would ever return. About himself as a young man, standing on that very same platform, convinced that life was something that happened later. He spoke slowly, without drama, and each sentence fell heavily, like an old coin on concrete.
And, without realizing when, I found myself saying more than I intended. Nothing spectacular. Just little truths. Fatigue. Fears. Questions you don’t ask at family dinners. Things you hide from friends, for fear of becoming a burden.
It seemed strange to me how easily the words came.
At six in the morning, in a train station, with a man whose name I didn’t know, I felt freer than with those who had known me for years. With them, every truth risks changing something. With a stranger, the truth is just the truth — it causes no damage, requires no explanation, leaves no trace.
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Maybe that’s why we’re more afraid of those close to us. Because they have the power to hurt us exactly where it hurts the most. Because when we open up to them, there is no longer a platform. There is no longer a departure. We are left only with the fear that someone has discovered our secrets.
The train arrived silently. I got up. The old man stayed. We didn’t shake hands. We didn’t make any promises. I said “have a good day” curtly, briefly, as if any other words would have ruined something. I left with the feeling that I had left behind something I wouldn’t have had the courage to say at home.
I got on the train.
The doors closed with a loud bang, like a blade drawn across the silence, announcing that the chance to change your mind had just passed. I sat down by the window. I looked back, looking at him as if for the last time. He was standing in the same place, small in the fog, motionless. I bowed my head slightly — not as a greeting, but as a silent thank you for his words, for the peace he had placed on my shoulders. It was as if, for the first time in a long time, someone had lifted a weight off my chest. A weight I had carried for years without knowing who to give it to.
The train started slowly. The station faded into the distance, and his silhouette was lost in the fog, like a memory that doesn’t want to be kept too clear. Inside me, however, something remained open. A strange emptiness, not of loss, but of incompleteness. As if the conversation hadn’t ended, but had only been interrupted.
I had a confusing feeling. As if I hadn’t done anything after all. As if the half-told truth doesn’t heal, but only makes you aware of the wound. I still had something to say. Not to him — but to myself. Or to those who should have heard me long ago.
I thought then about the people in my life. About those close to me. About meals where there is much talk and little is said. About safe, clean conversations where pain is not allowed to enter. With them, I always felt I had to be a certain way. Not to disturb. Not to complicate things. Not to say too much.
With a stranger, at a train station, at six in the morning, I was allowed to be real.
Maybe because he had nothing to lose from my truth. Maybe because once the train leaves, everything stays behind — words, confessions, weaknesses. Or maybe because sometimes we need witnesses who don’t know us, so we have the courage to tell our story.
The train kept moving. The people in the carriage were sleeping, looking at their phones, living lives that had nothing to do with me. I sat with my forehead pressed against the window and wondered when it had become so difficult to be honest with those who love you. When did this fear of opening up appear, precisely where you should feel safest?
I understood then that it’s not the absence of people around you that hurts, but the absence of a place where you can say everything. A platform. A place of passage, where you are not obliged to stay, but where you are allowed to leave something of yourself behind.
The station had completely disappeared, swallowed up by the fog, as if it had never existed. Inside me, however, there remained an unnatural silence. Not the kind of silence that heals, but the kind that comes after you’ve said almost everything, but not quite.
I understood then that it wasn’t the silence that weighed on me, but the fact that I knew what I had to say. That I carry heavy words inside me, ready to fall, but with nowhere to go. That the fear is not to speak, but to speak and have no one hear you.
With a stranger, the truth is safe. It doesn’t linger, it doesn’t demand, it doesn’t turn against you. With those close to you, the truth risks changing everything. That’s why we put it off. That’s why we hide it. That’s why we say it on the platform, not at home.
I looked out the window. The train was moving forward. I was silent.
And I realized that there are things I didn’t tell the old man
and that I won’t tell anyone,
for fear that they would reveal too much truth.
