My Contest Entry: Finish the Story Week #4 by f3nix

Hi everyone, here is my contest entry for Finish the Story Week #4. You can read the first part of the story here. I also posted my ending in the comments on the contest page. Thanks @f3nix!

https://steemit.com/contest/@f3nix/finish-the-story-earn-3-steembasicincome-shares-payout-week-4

“Signore mi scusi, I come for rent?” The professor turned slowly to look at Signora Battista. She was a dark haired woman in her fifties, hair pulled back in a no-nonsense bun. The professor nodded and moved towards his checkbook. He wondered briefly why she never knocked. Possibly because she knew he wouldn't answer the door. She was right.

The attic was shabby and cluttered, he cared little for appearances. He plucked the checkbook from a pile and began writing the check. He could feel her eyes on him, a mixture of pity and fear. His writing was almost illegible, he had to focus to complete the check properly. As he handed the check to Signora Battista she noticed the small white blisters on his palm. “Hand OK?” she asked. He had fallen into the habit of holding his palm over a candle flame when the memories immobilized him. Only when the pain of his seared flesh surpassed the pain in his soul, could he continue to function.

He looked into her eyes, and her eyes widened. He avoided eye contact as a rule, but her small gesture had started a small crack in the dam holding back his ocean of pain. “I burn it with a candle” he said simply. She looked away, fumbling through her limited English for something to break the awkward silence. The professor continued to look at her, his bloodshot eyes boring into her like daggers. She put her hand to her face and whispered, “why you.... burn?”.

The dam broke.

He told her everything.

He had taken the students of the Physics Club for a train ride every year in the locomotive engine. He would explain train physics, and the students enjoyed the scenery outside and watched the engineer. That year the club had 6 students, and they were listening carefully as he explained how a train overcame inertia. Suddenly the engineer shouted and locked up the brakes. Time slowed down. A student lurched forward and bloodied her nose. The train horn was deafening. Sparks from the wheels flew gracefully past the windows. There was a fallen tree on the track, and 100 yards beyond were cars waiting at a traffic light.

Thoughts flicked through the Professor's mind, unbidden. He stared at the large tree, slavishly obeying the physics that gripped it tight to the ground, oblivious to the impending disaster. He instinctively noted the angle of the tree and predicted the resulting path. “Of course the cars wouldn't notice, the train always blows its horn” the Professor thought as the cars waited patiently for death. The train struck the tree and derailed, heading for the 8 cars in two lanes, waiting at the light. Inside the cars, heads snapped up and turned toward the train, mouths opened. Cars were slammed in reverse and started honking. The cars in front were trapped by the cars behind. Bumpers met and shards of plastic littered the ground like stained glass.

One driver in front gunned the engine and drove across the tracks, trying to beat the train. He crossed the tracks only to reach the cruelty of the busy highway. Glass shattered. Air bags deployed. Cars and bodies unwillingly submitting to force and velocity. The train continued to nose towards the group of cars to the right, while whipping a dragon's tail of baggage cars off to the left onto the highway. Drivers abandoned their cars and ran, only serving to prevent escape to others. His memory parsed out to chilling still frames. The train continually striking cars and impossibly taking them with it, sparks flying, bodies struck and dragged under, blood on windshields, ambulances, body bags, a grey child in a carseat.

In the following months the various anchors of his life quietly detached. His job was first, then his wife and children, finally his friends. No one understood. The sheer mechanical brutality of physics. He had studied it and respected it so long, but would have traded anything to suspend its laws for those dreadful 38 seconds. Physics was so cold in its neutrality, indifferent to life, indifferent to tears, indifferent to beauty.

He told her he looked out the window because it was his only distraction. His intelligent mind invented and retained the names of all the “regulars” outside. He imagined their lives, the struggles, the victories, the defeats. He studied them day after day, plotting out their fortunes based on probabilities. It was his only distraction. He would run out of money in exactly 14 months, but could not stretch it any farther, even on his spartan diet of noodles and coffee.

Signora Battista was moved. She dabbed her eyes and embraced him. A shock went through the Professor's body, he had forgotten the warmth of human touch. She held him close, then excused herself and left. He stood in disbelief, staring at the door she had just left through.
next day a man in a uniform came to cleaned the windows. The Professor began to sob, his body shaking as the sun warmed his face. There was a knock at the door.