Border station

The station sat where the road met the river. In summer the water was low and you could see the stones. In winter it was a gray sheet, and the bridge was the only way across.

They didn't get many visitors. A few trucks a week. The officer would stamp the papers, sometimes offer tea. Nobody hurried. Time moved differently there - not slower, exactly, but thinner. As if the hours had less weight.

I asked him once what he did when nobody was around. He said he read. Old books, mostly. Things that had been left behind. "Someone has to remember this place," he said. "Might as well be me."

I think about that sometimes. The difference between guarding a border and inhabiting it. He had chosen the second. I'm not sure I could.