Missing In Paris

Chapter 3

Foolish? Or smartest decision ever?

Neela wondered which it was, as she squeezed onto the crowded eastbound train.

If life was just a series of random meaningless coincidences, then it didn't really matter where Antonio had gone, nor did it matter if she ever saw him again.

But what if there was some cosmic purpose, for why he tumbled down that particular stairwell, at that particular time? Wasn't it something that warranted at least a little bit of further investigation?

Neela decided that it definitely was, as her body became wedged between a stroller and a man playing an accordion next her ear.

She cringed at the jarring sound, and silently prayed that "cosmic purposes" were real...

***

At the next métro stop, Antonio waited nervously at the platform's edge. He peered into the tunnel, as if somehow that would make the next train arrive sooner. It didn't. What it actually did was make him nearly lose his balance and fall right onto the tracks. He gasped and heaved his body backwards in the nick of time.

As he slowly recovered from his latest harrowing experience, he noticed an elderly woman who was struggling to get her trolley of groceries up the stairs.

"Madame!" he called out, as he rushed over to be her instant knight-in-shining-armour. "Do you need some help?" he asked in French.

She smiled and took a second to admire his handsome features through the fogginess of a cataract. She nodded for him to take charge, and boy, did he ever. He took the trolley in one firm hand and led her up the stairs with the other. It was a gallant move, until he looked back and saw the next train rolling into the station.

His steps quickened immediately, which made it difficult for the elderly woman to keep up. He dragged her along without noticing her struggle, and at last they made it to the glorious summit.

Or at least he'd thought so.

He caught a glimpse of it from around the corner: a second set of stairs.

As all of this was happening, the train doors chimed open and the passengers piled in. If Antonio's mystery gal had followed his instructions and boarded that train, she wouldn't see him on the platform waiting for him as he'd hoped. Nope, he was up here in the stairwell trying to be a Good Samaritan.

He picked up the speed up the second set of stairs, practically dragging the old woman along behind him like a rag doll; suddenly the distinction between 'helpful stranger' and 'elder abuse' was unclear.

As he finally finished escorting the woman to the top, the train bells chimed to signal the closing doors.

"Nonnn!" he cried out.

Antonio raced back down the stairs, hoping upon hopes that his mystery woman was somehow waiting on the platform. Maybe she hadn't seen him but decided to wait a few minutes just in case.

Or...maybe she had no interest in following a clumsy stranger through the underground tunnels of Paris.

He completed his mad dash down the stairs with a not-at-all-surprising stumble, recovering just in time to see the train roll away.

With not a single sign of the woman who had rescued him after his fall.

***

Neela peered out the window of the train and watched as it rolled away. She hadn't seen Antonio anywhere on the platform, but rather than thinking he'd just left and forgotten about her, she convinced herself that she'd misinterpreted his instructions. It was the typical irrational conclusion of a person in search of cosmic meaning, and she rode it all the way to her next idea. "Maybe the last stop?" she wondered aloud. "Yeah, he must've meant the final stop." She nodded in formal agreement with herself. This would all work out.