A cardboard box and a Starbucks latte.

 Characters - Finn (protagonist) Noah (Carpool partner) Pierre Bernard (a famous author whose fame faded eventually) 

Exhausted. Exhausted was the correct word to describe how I felt every morning as the drowsy commuters walked in handing me their tickets forgetting to greet me back. It was another ordinary day carrying the bitter cold of the winters, rather dark actually as I stood by the door and a passenger walked in, I smiled again “welcome, please show me your ticket and have a seat” he coldly nodded and dropped it in my palm, I managed to sigh before looking down again knowing it would be another mundane 13 hours operating the train. 

The engines came to a halt around Othmarschen Station and a man dressed completely in black stepped down followed by the usual crowd. His round glasses reminded me of a celebrity. I chuckled at how badly I needed a good conversation and how empty my mind was to be noticing every passenger’s outfit. A tourist called out to me disturbing my scattered thoughts. “Excuse me? I think someone forgot a package…” I walked over to her “He was wearing black and he got down on the last station” she added like it was going to change the fact that this package would get lost in the bottomless boxes where the other lost things are kept. I tossed it into my satchel and continued work. 

It was the end of the day at work so I wrapped up my things and carpooled home sipping the same Starbucks mocha I did every day, nibbling on the same cookie as the usual, sitting next to the same guy from yesterday or even last week. Noah reached into my satchel as if I wasn’t uncomfortable by the lack of personal space in the car already to look for a sanitiser, he pulled out the package from earlier so he could dig his hands in deeper into my bag when I realised I forgot to leave the package at the lost and found at the station. Thinking about it...It could have a bomb inside, why was I carrying it? I juggled it between my hands, squished it from different sides and had Noah step on it before concluding it wasn’t a bomb. 

As I entered my apartment I kept it on the table so it would stay in my sight and I could report a lost package at work tomorrow. Sipping soup, my mind went in a hundred different places about the package, it was a simple old cardboard box but for a person like me, it was an interesting topic of thought - even the start of a good story. I pulled the package a little closer to my eyes and re-adjusted my glasses to have a better look. After inspecting it a little bit, I found a tiny sticker bent over the corner, something in French but it looked like an address. 

Curiosity built up in my head so I grabbed a blade, saved the address and quickly cut it open. My eyes were shut close expecting something i

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llegal to pop up at me but all the box contained was an interesting amount of money. It had a mere twenty grand whereas mysterious boxes like this in Pierre Bernard’s stories would contain millions. There was a note as well “J'espère que cela t'aides” I certainly knew enough to understand this money was to help someone. I put it in the mailbox and enveloped the words “return to sender” for my mailman to figure out. 

Later at night, staring at the walls got me into deep thoughts about the amount of emotional significance that money could have to someone, I tossed and turned all night but couldn’t sleep a wink when at the crack of dawn I decided I would deliver the money to the sender myself, after all...I did need a break from all the sleepy friends at the station. How erratic I was getting about a stranger’s package was only the result of how tedious life at work had become. 

I booked myself a rental car and drove a little further than Hamburg until I finally found ‘house no. 1245 Paris, Butte-aux-Cailles’. I gently knocked on the door and heard light footsteps. I could hear the wooden floor creak as an old man stepped outside and looked at me, a complete stranger standing on his porch. I looked up to see this face when I simply froze, he was only the most renowned author in the world...or at least he used to be. His round glasses, the wooden floors, the aroma of the coffee he carried - everything just as he described in his books. “S-sir, I believe I have a pack-a package that belongs to you” I managed to stutter. He looked at me as I handed him the envelope, he opened it and looked at me once again but with softer eyes. “Thank you, young man, this indeed a very important sum of money, if lost I would’ve been in serious trouble...how can I repay you ?” I just stared at him blankly, then replied. 

“No sir, I’ll head out, Thank you” 

“I insist, join me for a cup of coffee” - he said.

I followed him inside his low roofed villa internally screaming. I eventually calmed down and answered his questions with clear words, as I was on the doorstep I mustered up the courage to ask “Is it okay if I ask why this money is so important?”

He looked down and chuckled before saying

 “Business has been slow, it’s a new age, and books aren’t selling, I’ve been using the last of my prominence to restore some libraries, this was out to my friend at the Vincent Bibliotheque in Leon” 

I then smiled and took my leave, on my way back I felt refreshed, for once I wasn’t exhausted. I went back home with a new mindset, Grabbed a diary and jotted down everything that happened. I didn’t know my story would turn into a book someday and that a train operator like me with a dull old job could be a storyteller someday. - Aanya Chand.