Eleven Minutes

When the board changed from +7 to +11, Elian Marr swore so quietly that the woman beside him thought he had sneezed.

“Bless you,” she said.

“Thanks.”

Then both of them looked at the information board again, as if it might be ashamed.

It was not.

The service from Glassmere Central had departed its previous stop late due to a door fault. A technical crew was on its way. Passengers with connections were advised to use alternative routes.

There were no sensible alternative routes.

Elian opened the message from his sister.

She’s awake now.

He wrote: Eleven minutes. Sorry.

Three dots appeared.

Disappeared.

Came back.

You’re not the one driving the train.

It was exactly the sort of thing his sister wrote when she meant the opposite.

Elian put the terminal back in his jacket pocket. The paper bag in his hand gave a small rustle. Four oranges. His mother’s favorite, at least before food had started tasting metallic and then, later, like almost nothing at all.

He had bought them anyway.

It was easier to arrive with the wrong thing than empty-handed.

Hundreds of people stood on the platform doing private things in public. A student read notes. Two workshop workers compared burn marks on their gloves. A synthetic man with a dent over the jaw joint held a bouquet of flowers so carefully that Elian found himself irritated with him for no reason.

Eleven minutes.

You could be born in eleven minutes.

You could be told you were going to die in eleven minutes.

You could also stand on Glassmere Central listening to an automated voice apologize for the inconvenience.

“You can take my place when it gets here.”

The woman beside him had spoken again.

“What?”

“You look like you’re planning to fight for the door.”

“Do I?”

“A little.”

She was synthetic, he noticed now. Not because she had tried to hide it. He simply had not registered it at first. The skin over her hands was dark and matte, the joints subtly visible at the wrists. She wore a worn gray coat and carried a cloth bag with BLACK KETTLE printed on one side.

“I don’t need your place.”

“Good,” she said. “I’d quite like to keep it.”

He laughed despite himself.

The information board did not change.

“Hospital?” she asked.

Elian looked at the bag.

“That obvious?”

“The oranges.”

“People can buy oranges without anyone being sick.”

“Absolutely.”

“I’m going to see my mother.”

She nodded without asking anything else.

After a while she said, “Coda.”

“Elian.”

Neither of them tried to make more of it.

When the train finally arrived, it was thirteen minutes late, which felt insulting after all that precision.

The doors opened.

Everyone immediately became worse people.

Elian was pressed forward with the rest. A stroller caught at an angle against the door edge. Someone swore loudly. The man with the flowers stepped aside for an elderly woman and lost his place.

Coda remained on the platform.

“You’re not getting on,” Elian said.

“Next one.”

“You said you wanted a place.”

“I changed my mind.”

The door signal sounded.

“Thank you.”

She shrugged.

“It was thirteen minutes. Not a kidney donation registry.”

The doors closed.

Elian watched her through the glass as the train pulled away.

Then she disappeared behind an advertisement for Forge Mutual.

YOUR CHASSIS CAN BE REPLACED. YOUR LIABILITY CANNOT.

Someone had drawn a moustache on the model’s face.

Elian reached the hospital nineteen minutes later than planned.

His sister sat outside the room with a coffee cup between her hands.

“You brought oranges.”

“I know.”

“She can barely eat.”

“I know.”

“Why did you bring oranges?”

“Because she asked me to buy them twenty years ago and I forgot.”

His sister stared at him.

Then she started laughing.

It became an ugly, sniffling laugh that spread to him until they were standing in the corridor sounding like two people who had lost control at a funeral.

“You’re an idiot,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“She’s going to hate them.”

“Probably.”

“Go in.”

The room was bright in the merciless way hospital rooms often were. No dramatic shadows. No secrets. Just plastic, metal, clean fabric and a window overlooking the roofs of Glassmere.

His mother looked smaller than she had the week before.

“Late,” she said.

Elian stopped.

“The train.”

“Of course.”

“Door fault.”

“They had doors when I was young too.”

“It hasn’t helped.”

She smiled with one side of her mouth.

He sat down.

The oranges ended up on the table.

“What’s that?”

“Oranges.”

“I can see that.”

“I thought—”

“They’ll taste like metal.”

“I know.”

“Bad purchase.”

“Yeah.”

She closed her eyes for a moment.

When she opened them again, she said:

“Peel one.”

He did.

The skin split beneath his thumb. Oil settled over his fingertips. The scent filled the sterile room so quickly it felt indecent.

His mother breathed in through her nose.

“That,” she said.

“What?”

“It still smells right.”

He placed a segment on her hand.

She did not eat it.

They simply sat there.

Outside, the city continued its afternoon. Someone was probably repairing the door fault. Someone was writing the report. Someone had been late for a shift and had to explain why. Coda Vale might have taken the next train or gone back to Black Kettle or done something Elian would never know about.

His mother held the orange segment between two thin fingers.

“Do you remember the market?” she asked.

“Which one?”

“The old one.”

“No.”

“Liar.”

“I was five.”

“You stole fruit.”

“I did not.”

“You bit into an orange without peeling it.”

“That sounds like something another child did.”

“I was there.”

He smiled.

“You remember it wrong.”

She looked at him for a long time.

“That’s possible.”

Then she told the story anyway.

Elian did not correct her again.

When he left two hours later, the trains had started running on time.

It almost made him angry.

At Glassmere Central he bought coffee from a machine and threw it away after two sips. He took the route past Black Kettle without really knowing why.

It was full.

Through the window he saw Coda Vale carrying a tray from one table to another. She had taken off the coat. She did not see him.

Elian considered going in and thanking her properly.

Then he decided not to.

Some small kindnesses did not become larger by being completed.

He walked home with the smell of orange still on his hands.