The platform.

"Waiting is not an empty time, but a vestibule of arrival."

The train was not yet in sight.

Only the metallic glint of the rails ran through the cold morning, and there was that strange silence in the air when every move is ready,

but none of it has yet started.

He didn't look at his watch.

Not because he didn't care about the time, but because he knew:

When we're really waiting, the watch is just a nuisance.

A few people were standing on the platform.

Someone was pacing nervously.

Someone was looking at his phone.

Someone was looking at the sky.

But there was one man who just stood there, turning an old, worn leather glove in his hand.

He wasn't cold.

He wasn't in a hurry.

He was just waiting.

He didn't know exactly what.

Maybe for news.

Maybe for a person.

Maybe for something to finally arrive that had been on its way for a long time.

The waiting wasn't empty.

It was full of memories, unspoken sentences,

and those thoughts that one only allows to come to oneself when there is nothing to do – just to be present.

The wind moved the edge of his coat.

For a moment, he felt as if someone had touched his shoulder.

There was no one there.

But the memory of the movement was enough.

Then, from afar, the sound of the train sounded.

Not loud, not hurried.

More like when fate gently signals:

"I'm here. Closer than you think."

And he didn't step forward.

He didn't wave.

He didn't rush.

He just smiled a little.

Because there are moments when the way we waited for it is more important than the arrival.

What is on the way is not delayed.

It just matures within us so that when it arrives, we can recognize it.