Prologue
THE DAY TIME STOOD STILL
By Jubilee Cardozo
Prologue
Time is a curious companion.
Most days, it passes unnoticed, quietly carrying us from one sunrise to the next. It asks for nothing and waits for no one. We measure it in calendars, clocks, birthdays, anniversaries, arrivals and departures, believing that every hour is much like the one before it.
And yet, there are moments when time seems to lose its rhythm.
A fleeting conversation. A smile that lingers a little longer than expected. A shared silence that says more than words ever could. An ordinary journey that, without warning, becomes extraordinary.
It is only much later that we realise life has quietly divided itself into two parts—before that moment, and after it.
No one ever recognises such moments while they are living them.
They arrive without ceremony, disguised as ordinary days.
A train departs from a crowded platform.
Passengers settle into their seats.
The whistle echoes into the evening air.
The journey begins.
Nothing appears unusual.
Yet somewhere between familiar faces, passing stations, cups of tea, laughter, and conversations that drift as effortlessly as the countryside beyond the window, hearts begin to remember what they have never dared to confess.
Some stories are written in grand declarations.
Others are written in the spaces between words.
This is one of those stories.
It is not merely about a journey by rail, nor only about two people who happen to travel together. It is about the quiet ways in which affection grows stronger through companionship, how memories are woven from the simplest of moments, and how life sometimes changes without asking for permission.
There comes a time when every traveller reaches a destination.
The train stops.
Doors open.
People step onto the platform and continue with their lives.
But every so often, a journey refuses to end when the train does.
It continues in memory.
It continues in hope.
It continues in unanswered questions.
And years later, when everything else has faded, one truth remains.
There was once a journey...
when, for just a little while,
time stood still.
