A layer of rain swept in with the cold breeze, pricking our stiff fists that pulled together thin coats. Stuck somewhere between Heidelberg and Munich, we’d already missed our first route due to our lack of knowing a lick of German. We stood like ice sculptures (another mistake, packing for a May trip as if we’d be frolicking in sunny fields of tulips) with confident grins that our train would be here soon.
Only a minute until it should stop in front of us, when a little elderly woman gasped at her phone. We shot panicked glances. Something wasn’t right. The lady took off, her suitcase rolling behind her. She said something in German, but her frantically pointed finger aimed at the opposite platform told us we were doomed. Our train switched platforms right under our noses. So we joined the woman in a race for the concrete stairs down into the tunnel. Thud, thud, thud, our suitcases tumbled down each step.
I glanced over my shoulder and noticed the woman struggling with her suitcase. “Should you help her?” I said to Jill, who was maneuvering a massive suitcase behind me. She didn’t respond, probably wanted to throw her bag right at my head.
We reached the bottom. “We can do this!” I said. Then I saw the next set of stairs that ascended to the new platform.
The cold air caught in my throat and we took a split second to fear the stairs. My suitcase was small (my wardrobe equally pitiful). Jill’s neared 22 kg. (learned something). I sprinted, yanking my poor little luggage upward. We caught sight of the train. The train that betrayed us.
“I’m going to run to it,” I called out. Jill was yanking her massive bag up the concrete mountain. I took off. Did I think I was going to hold the train? I’m not sure, but at that moment, I felt like I could do anything. Until I met the top, and the squeal and hiss pierced the middle-of-nowhere air. I made eye contact with the conductor who offered a shoulder shrug. A shrug to my banging heartbeat.
We stood on our new platform next to the lady we didn’t help. All of us stranded.
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