The Best Of Us

• Adam Qasem, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2019

I waited at the station in the blue of the frigid city. I’d had an exhausting day at work, I couldn’t wait to be home. Away from the lights, clamour and cold of the city. My train arrived, slowing down at the cool, damp concrete of the station floor. I grabbed my bag, hopped on and slumped into a chair.
I rested my chin on the palm of my hand and looked out as passed, a layer of glass the only barrier between me and a whole world of trains, full of people, who all have places to go, things to do, problems to solve. But that doesn’t matter to me or anybody really because we all have our own places to go. The train made a turn, I wondered what would happen if I just stayed till I reach the end, what would be there, what wouldn’t, what would surprise me and what would disappoint.
I snapped out of my daydream when the train shook violently. Everybody was frightened and confused. People got up to investigate. It shook again, they flew forwards and slammed into the floor, people screamed.
The train was going faster and faster, everyone was helpless.
I felt paralysed. Then it happened. A glitch in reality, divine intervention, call it what you will, but it happened.
Everything around me froze.
I thought it was some sort of shock response, a hallucination, some sort of coping mechanism but it happened.
It let the danger I was in sink in, I screamed and cried for what felt like hours, I banged at the doors and finally sunk into the floor in defeat, I then noticed what resembled paper on my lap, but it felt different, it was so smooth it felt like it would slip out of my hand.
It said;
“THE TRAIN WILL CRASH.
CHOOSE 3 SURVIVORS.
MAKE THE RIGHT CHOICE”
I screamed. “How could this be happening? Am I crazy?” These thoughts swirled around my head as I struggled with the concept that these lives were in my hands. I screamed again, not out of fear but anger, “Can I possibly decide who survives?”
I searched the train, trying to deduce who everybody was based off their belongings and even their expressions.
What I found distressed me. So many were good people, or my idea of good.
Volunteers, loving mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers.
One just had an interview for a job at a human rights organization, another donated their kidney to a child, the list went on, it was so overwhelming,
I just couldn’t decide, and then it hit me.
If I were to choose anybody, ANYBODY it would almost definitely be the wrong choice. There is no way to pick someone without understanding their entire life. If I choose anyone, it would be wrong, even if they were a good person, what makes them better than half the other people, who are good too?
I’m not meant to choose.
At that thought, the train moved.