Contemporary Fiction

Before the Last Train

by Rafael Lim

The companion book to Window Seat — same platform, twenty-three minutes earlier. This is the hour that belongs to no one: the people who could have caught the 11:19 and quietly, nightly, decide not to. The vendor's closing arithmetic, the guard's dead flashlight, the guitar that is never played and always brought. Rafael Lim rides nothing this time; he just stands on the platform and takes the whole city's attendance.