His pleading eyes

Bill stared at the mottled grey and green floor, transfixed on one spot that was stained with a substance he couldn’t quite decipher, and quite frankly he preferred not to know its origin.

He stared at things a lot recently. For the past few weeks his wife said that he always appeared to be lost in thought.

But when he was staring, he wasn’t lost. He was always in the same place.

Always back on that platform.

Always staring down once again at the man with the pleading eyes.

“Hey man, did you want a coffee or not?”, the raspy voice beckoned from over the counter, tearing Bill’s gaze away from the questionably stained floor.

“Oh...yes sorry, I erm…I’ll take a black coffee please, no sugar….and a large box of donuts too”

He didn’t really like donuts. But his colleagues did, and ever since he’d come into some money he felt obligated to bring in treats to the office. He hadn’t planned on telling them about his little windfall, but his wife, Sandra, had told Gina in accounts about it at the school gates, and well…Gina talks.

All his associates had something to say about his recent fortune.

“I tell ya, I’ve played the damn lottery for 5 years and have I ever won a dime?” his manager Mike declared in the break room when he heard the news. “Nope! And then Billy boy over here, plays once and he’s $20K richer? It’s unbelievable!”

He was right. It was unbelievable.

It was an outright lie.

Bill had never played the lottery. He always said it was for fools who wanted to throw money away, and he just couldn’t afford to piss money up the wall every week on a farfetched fantasy. Which is why when he told Sandra about it, she was shocked that the money had come from a lottery win. He was sure she’d know he was lying. But when she saw the 5 figures in their bank account she just accepted it, because… well, where else could it possibly have come from?

He wished that could be the truth.

Oh how much simpler his life would be if it were.

He’d be able to hold his head up high when he told people about it. He’d be filled with excitement every time he looked at his account. He’d revel in planning an exotic holiday with Sandra to the Bahama’s.

He wouldn’t be buying ‘guilt donuts’ for the office as some kind of pathetic, half-hearted penance. He wouldn’t yearn to see his usual measly bank balance instead of the one that currently appeared on his screen. He wouldn’t feel this overwhelming shame that hung around his shoulders every day, getting heavier and heavier every waking hour.

And every night when he went to sleep, he wouldn’t have to see the man with the pleading eyes staring back at him.

On that fateful day that he had “won the lottery”, Bill had worked very late and had to catch the last train home. Usually Sandra would pick him up around 5.30pm and they’d drive home together, picking up dinner on the way. But that day, just before home time, all the office computers had come under siege from a pretty severe virus, and as the IT guy Bill had to stay and do battle with the malware until gone 11pm.

“Yeah sorry honey, it was a little more than a ‘turn it off and on again’ job today!” Bill wearily joked with Sandra as he made his way to the station, “I’ll be home soon though, the last trains at 11.40 so I’ll be back just after midnight. Ok, love you too.”

As he rounded the corner and caught site of the station a sense of familiar dread filled his body.

He hated trains. They had always scared him since he was 10 years old when he’d seen another child fall on the tracks, while her mother screamed for help. It was some kind of miracle that an off-duty policeman had been on the tracks and rescued the little girl with only seconds to spare. Since then, he avoided trains like the plague, and when he did ultimately have to use them he stayed as far back from the platform edge as he physically could.

Nevertheless, he needed to get home and a cab would cost a fortune, so his only option was to endure the next 30 minutes of hell.

As he reached the platform he looked around.

Empty.

Good – with no one around he could give himself a pep talk without any judgement. “You’ll be fine Bill, the train will be here soon, just stay calm and keep away from the edge. You’ll be home with Sandra in no time.”

He walked up the platform, counting his steps, focusing on anything but the edge of the platform and the sharp drop onto the tracks. He went back and forth uninterrupted, until his 10th turn when he looked up to see a figure ahead.

The stranger was around 20 metres away but from the pungent smell of whisky and the man’s swaying stagger Bill could tell he was thoroughly intoxicated.

Catching sight of Bill the stranger slurred “Hey it’s you! You’re Jill’s boyfriend right?...Or is it Karen’s? Oh man what a party, I don’t even know how I got here, did you bring me here?”

Wow, thought Bill as he restrained himself from an epic eye roll. He had never been a big drinker, and he could never see the appeal of getting so out of your head you couldn’t see straight.

“Sorry buddy, I think you’ve got the wrong person” Bill said curtly, not really in the mood to partake in tipsy conversation.

The man’s face looked utterly perplexed, open mouth gawping as he studied Bill more closely, “Are you sure? I could swear I bought you a tequila earlier…”

“Nope, sorry. Wasn’t me…”

“C’mon you were there! Dude, were you at the poker table when I won that hand with a straight flush? Ha! I couldnt believe my luck, Dean wanted to kill me though, he thought he had it in the bag…That reminds me…”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a little black book with a pen hooked onto it. He casually threw the book at Bill, “Take this down for me, will ya”.

Oh because apparently I’m your secretary now, Mike said to himself in disbelief.

The man continued, “March 15th, I beat Dean AGAIN! Note to self, as you’re pretty wasted right now, - DO NOT forget he still owes you 9K. You're going to need every penny for what's coming!”

Jesus, thought Bill – 9K short, how much did he win?

Then he watched as the man pulled a bulging wad of $100 dollar bills from his pocket and waved it in his face.

“You ever see this much cash in one go dude?! Here…here count it, tell me how much it is,”

Is this guy serious? He’s just going to hand me, a total stranger, a wad of cash to count for him? See, this is why I don’t get drunk.

“Count it! Count it! Count it!” The man chanted like a gleeful toddler as he stumbled up and down the platform performing a wobbly celebration dance. Bill groaned as he reluctantly counted the money, just so the stranger would shut the hell up.

One thousand…two thousand…three thousand and on it went until Bill paused, looked up at the man and stuttered “$20,000…it’s $20,000?”

“20 THOUSAND BIG ONES! Woohoo YEAH!” The man screamed at the top of his voice. He flung his arms out wide as he spun around in circles, blurting out inaudible nonsense.

Bill could hear the train coming and thanked God that his interaction with this inebriated idiot was nearly over. “Yeah that’s great man but seriously calm down…and get away from the edge, the trains coming.”

“This is how I live my life now dude! On the edge!” Sniggered the man as he teetered on the crumbling concrete verge, cackling like a hyena. Bill could hear the click clack of the train growing closer. But the man didn’t move.

A wave of anxiety and irritation was bubbling up in Bill’s body as he shouted “HEY! Get the hell away from the…oh shit”

It all seemed to happen in slow motion. The man’s body tilted backwards, and in that split second of realisation, Bill could see the excitement in his eyes turn to sheer terror. He was falling and neither of them could stop it.

“Oh my god HELP ME! Please man HELP ME!!”

Bill could hear his cries but he couldn’t move. Thirty years of irrepressible fear of this very occurrence had left him rooted to the ground stronger than a 100-year-old oak tree. He was frozen and all he could do was stare as the stranger peered up at him with terrified eyes as the train click-clacked as it hurtled towards them.

“HELP ME!!!!”

Click-clack.

The brakes started to screech but it didn’t seem like enough.

“JESUS CHRIST HELP!”

Click-clack.

A single tear rolled down Bill’s cheek.

“PLEASE, WHY WON’T YOU HEL …”

And just like that, the man was gone.

Oh God.

Bill felt sick to his very core. His inner monologue went into over drive – Why didn’t you help him! You stupid coward, you did nothing! You let him die! You killed him…

He clenched his fists in anger and as he did, he remembered what he was holding. In his right hand, the little black book the man had thrown at him. In his left, the wad of cash he’d asked him to count.

Oh my god.

As he stared at the insane amount of money in his hand, his mind fought violently with itself. Every moral fibre of his being told him to hand it over to the police when they would inevitably arrive.

It’s not yours, you can’t keep it…it’s just wrong.

But he just couldn't deny how much this money would help him. His job paid poorly, he was behind on last month’s bills and he and Sandra hadn’t been on holiday in 15 years.

You might as well keep it. What good would it do to hand it in? It’s not like he can use it anymore.

He stood there for what felt like hours, going back and forth trying to make the impossible decision, when he heard sirens in the distance.

Now or never Bill.

“I’m sorry….but I need this,” he whispered to nobody as he slipped the cash and the little black book into his pocket. It felt so wrong, but he had made his decision.

And unlike the stranger on the platform, he'd live to regret it.

For the subsequent two weeks every single day had been torture.

Every dime he spent felt tainted. Every time someone congratulated him on winning the lottery he felt like a fraud. Any fun-loving drunk guy he saw made his heart pang with such remorse. Everything felt like a lie.

He wished he had been brave enough to pull the man off of the tracks and save him. He wished he had just left the money on the ground. He wished his moral compass had been in better condition that night. He wished he’d never told his wife he’d won the lottery as a cover, because now he was stuck with the money whether he liked it or not. He couldn’t get rid of it now, how would he explain it to Sandra?

And he really wished he hadn’t read in the man’s little black book about his appointment at the doctors for his girlfriend's sonogram next week.

The appointment he’d never get to attend. For the child he’d never get to meet.

And so, each day for the last 2 weeks or so, he’d bought a tray of guilt donuts for the guys at work, because for just a second it made him feel better. Knowing some of the money was spent on something he wouldn’t enjoy. It felt like some kind of miniscule atonement for what he’d done.

He could only hope that maybe one day he would learn to live with it.

That one day he might be able to go to sleep without seeing the man with the pleading eyes staring back at him.