Memior

I sat alone and wedged between the comfort of the leather-skin bench and the stone of the car-room window which spoke between me and the winded snow outside.  The door to the room was shut and I was alone and away from the clamor of the passengers in the hallway, but I could still see their shadows pass by the tinted window of the door which separated us.  The walls which stood quietly around me were plied with red wallpaper and lit by a low golden set of four light bulbs burning on each end of the room's corners.  It was numbly warm inside the passenger car and I was starting to get drowsy within the hum of the heat escaping the ceiling vent, and the mumbling of the walled voices coming from outside my room.  I didn't have much to do now before the train departed, so I just began to think.  I closed my eyes and lost myself in thought and echoed breath as I ghostly felt the snowflakes melt my skin through the window.

I decided that I could afford to lose track of time, and I softly fell asleep.

***

By the time I had woken up the train had probably been moving for maybe a little over an hour.  I could see vast rolling hills of white outside my window that looked as if it was an ocean of icy land under a light violet haze of a still clouded overcast sky above.  We had left behind Haysville and the falling snow long ago now.  My eyes were stained in drunken daze and my shoulder ached in strain from sleeping on it for too long.  The next thing I noticed was that I was still alone, which wasn't all that bad.

I sat up, stretched my shoulder, yawned, and started to rub my face.  Then I noticed something sitting on the opposite bench.  A tan bag that looked familiar, but escaped my memory in persistence.

"So, someone else is here." I mumbled under my scratched breath, "Whoever it is'll probably be back soon."

From under my bench I dragged out my saddle bag and plopped it down next to me.  I opened it, took out my book, stuffed my bag back under my seat, and in the dim light of the room and the shine of the old evening I began to read, but the satchel laid on the bench across the room failed to escape both my eye and my mind.    Between text and curiosity I filled myself.  I incessantly felt an itch in the back of my mind that seemed careless to any action of wrong or right, and only a minute had passed.  I wanted to know what was inside that tan bag.  I put down my book on the bench and carefully walked to the door.  I cracked it open and looked outside, glancing both to the left and the right of the train car's near-lightless hall finding it empty.  I slid the door shut and locked it's latch, giving me a fail-safe if the other passenger returned anytime soon.  I turned to the strange bag, for the first time feeling the rocking of the moving train sway me in my stance.

Suddenly I felt a vexed heat filtering under my skin; excitement mixed with a sense of harsh mischief and conscious stupidity.  In the past I had gone through other people's bags before when they weren't looking, and by death and Heaven above it's a rapture of a high.  The same high now brewing stone toxic in my sleeping stomach.

I trotted to the bag and flipped it open from the flapped top, and the first thing I heard was the clinking of glass.  I peered inside, firstly finding five small bottles of some type of medicine.  I reached in and picked one out, then read it's label.

Insulin

"Diabetic." I said to myself.  I put the bottle back inside the bag and fished out a few medical syringes.  I dropped one syringe back in and unscrewed the orange cap off the one I kept, exposing the needle and a faintly sterile chemical smell.  I wryly smiled as a sick idea came into my head.   I held the syringe in my right hoof and started playfully poking my left arm without impaling my skin.  With each poke I muttered, "Boop, boop, boop!" Then I quietly chuckled to myself, feeling rather uneasily entertained.

I recapped the syringe and tossed it back into the bag, starting to fish inside it again for more content.  I pulled out a wallet, but quickly put it back.  The wallet was bound to have some sort of photo I.D. in it and I wanted whosoever bag this was to be a secret to me until whomever it was came back.  I fished some more, then pulled out a small cardboard container of jellybeans.  I opened the top, ate two, then closed it and put it back in the bag.  I shuffled the items around, hoping to see anything else.  Then, I tapped my hoof on something square and hard.  I took it out and found it was a small, flat wooden box with two tiny hinges on one side.  It was a photograph keeper.  At first I wanted to put it back because of the possibility that I might see the owner of the bag in a photo inside, but there was something so simply strange about the object, as if whatever was inside was darkly beckoning to be seen.  I stood there for what felt like the longest time just contemplating whether or not I should open the keeper.

The high was set in strong and my heart and mind both raced in speed outrageous.  My body was starting to shake unceasingly in my excitement.  I wanted to open the box, I needed to open the box.  Whoever left the bag here on this bench put it here for me to find this photograph keeper and see whatever was inside.  I made my move to unhinge the...

CLICKA- Tch...

Somebody tried to open the door.  I quickly put the photograph keeper back inside the bag and folded the bag closed.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!

"Just a minute!"  I calmly yelled as I walked to the door.  I took a look back to the tan bag before I unhinged the door, my blood still pounding through my howling skin, making me feel sick.  I slid the door aside, finding myself faced with a kind old smile and a pair of lucid green eyes.

He stood straight and tired in the hallway, amongst the sunset lights lit by the bulbs on the higher wall.

"Hello there." The old stallion said.

"Hi." I responded.

For a moment we were silent.  He stared at me, then down the hall, then back to me asking, "May I come in?"

I stepped back and he walked in, still in his stumbling gait.  Then he said, "It's a beautiful afternoon, eh?"

I looked out the window to the dim and clouded sunlight outside the train car, then asked, "What time is it?"

"About eight o' clock, my dear.  Before you know it it'll be nine and night will have come again."

I shut the door and gave the old stallion a smile, even though his back was turned behind me as he encountered his bench.

"Do you remember me?" I asked.

The old Pegasus took his bag and slide it to the side of his bench, then from under his wings he dropped a small violin and a bow next to the bag.

He carefully climbed up onto the leather cushion, laid down, and he exhaled loudly, "Roseluck, I remember.  Is that right?"

My smile caught his eye, and I could see a smile coming back to me, "Yeah, but I didn't catch your name when we were at the transit.  What is it?"

"Meelo.  My name is Meelo, but you can call me Gramps.  That's what kids call me anyways whenever they see me."

"Your own kids?" I asked.

"No. No..." He responded quite slowly, "Never had any kids of my own, it's just what kids call me."

"Ah... Well it's nice to see you again though."

"Likewise my dear, likewise."  And as he said those words he looked out the window and lazily stared out into the early dark.

I walked back to my seat and laid down, resting my head on the armrest.  I took a long breath and asked, "How was your day?"

But Meelo didn't respond, I didn't think he heard me.  Then for some reason somewhere in the gates of my mind, I decided to stay silent.  For a long time we didn't say anything.  He stared out the window and I blindly at his bag, careful that he didn't catch my sight.  I thought about starting up a conversation but it didn't look like he was in the mood to talk, and we still had several hours ahead of us before my stop came up to Ponyville.  It was about forty minutes though before he broke our silence.

"I had a pretty good day."

At first I didn't realize that he was responding to my question I asked so much time ago, but I oddly caught on when he spoke.

"You thought about that for a long time."

"No, I was just caught up in another thought that came to my mind first.  Something raining darkly over in Shire Hill."

"That's where you're going to, yeah?" I asked.

"Yeah." He responded.

"Must be pretty darn big for you to want to think about it for forty minutes before answering my question."

"What question?"

He was serious when he said it, and I didn't know what to say.  So all I said again was, "How was your day?"

"Oh, it was fine.  Thanks for asking."

The first thought that came to my mind then was that Gramps was both a diabetic and delusional.  Which of course isn't a great concoction.  What on Earth was he doing out in the real world when he was better fit in a retirement home?

"That's good to hear, sir."  I lifted my head up, "You feeling alright?"

"Oh yeah, I'm feeling fine.  Don't worry about me dear.  How are you?"

"Not bad."

Meelo gave a grunt and went back to looking out the window.  The night sky lay above the sheet of covered clouds, leaving not a single star to be seen.

"What's in Shire Hill?" I asked.

Meelo looked down, and I could almost hint at some sort of sadness hidden under his gentle old eyes.

"I'm visiting an old friend I once knew a long time ago in that city.  We were lovers when we were young, but now we're both gone and alone."

Then silence like Hell it came, and my trap was shut.

He continued on, "We haven't talked in over fifty years, me and her.  I always thought about coming back to see her in all those years I've been away, but I could never bring myself to do so.  Now I'm old and just as stupid, only wiser to have finally returned before I died."

"You're dying?"  I asked dumbly.

Meelo turned to look at me, and on his face he bore a sugared smile.

"We're all dying my dear, but dying isn't as bad as people think.  Death is just like a kiss that waits to be caught at the right time, but you mustn't catch it without knowing love first."

Then I tied my tongue, loosening it a few seconds later to say, "So did you really love her then?  The woman in Shire Hill?"

Meelo longingly sighed and closed his tired eyes in a look of deep regret, "Not the way I was suppose to."

I didn't know what overtook me to press on, but without thinking I asked, "What happened?"

And then for some reason he told me...