What follows is just a story. A love story. It involves the supernatural, but I would not describe it as scary. The sexual content is not great or over explicit. If you want that sort of story please look elsewhere. If you enjoy it please comment and tell me. More important, if you do not like it then please give me feedback and I will try to do better in the future.
Who am I? My name is not important.
What am I? We have many names around the world. Different ones depending upon language, of course, but also depending on where we are. We appear in many sorts of literature, some folk tales, some religious books, some horror stories, and even in children's stories. Were you to meet me you might see me, probably as an instantly forgettable person, or you might just look through me and not see me at all. Just think of me as an observer.
Ann Smith and Peter Jones were both brought up in a rural village not far from the coast. The village was not much more than one big house, a small church, a couple of farms, a few farm-worker's cottages and a shop-cum-post office. They lived in a pair of tiny cottages a little way from the main village.
Peter's father was in the merchant navy, and was away most of the time. Ann's father had met someone else, and was no longer on the scene, but he sent a little money to her at birthdays and Christmas; if he remembered.
Both mothers went out to work. Peter's mother worked at a pub in the next village in the evenings, Ann's helped in the post office during the day. It seemed natural for one mother or the other to look after both children when the other was working.
In the countryside, around farms, children learned the facts of life soon enough. Anne and Peter shared bath-times, in the tin bath beside the kitchen fire, so were well aware of their different anatomies from an early age. The two of them played together, went to school together, and were simply best friends.
Then Peter's father found a place for him at a boarding school specialising in naval families, and targeted at naval cadets of the future. Ann went to school in the nearby town. Peter was away at school for much of the time, but their friendship continued.
They both did well at school and earned places in college. One thing Peter had learned, however, was that he was not destined to be a sailor. He got horribly sea-sick. Instead he chose to train as an engineer, while Ann went into medicine, training for nursing.
They were two friends -- and they were close friends, but had never been tempted to take their friendship to the next stage. They had perhaps been too close, more like brother and sister than girl and boyfriend. But now, they had both qualified and were taking up their first jobs. They had come home from their colleges for he last time. They had been apart for stretches of time, and were now all the more appreciative of their times together. They had had a couple of weeks break. They spent much of it just wandering around the countryside that had been their childhood playground; remembering what had gone before. But time passes.
It was raining hard. The two of them now sat in a stone built shelter waiting for the bus that would take them from the village. Both were starting new lives. Two new futures, with hopes and fears, All they had they were wearing or carrying -- each had a large suitcase and an umbrella. They sat, close to each other, not knowing what to say. Their hands touched for a moment. Obviously during childhood they had touched each other many times, but now they were starting adult life. This touch was different. Something had changed.
They turned and leaned towards each other and they looked at each other. Both had tears in their eyes. Should they kiss? Both wanted to, but they heard the motor horn that signalled the approaching bus. They had to get up and out into the rain to signal to the driver to stop for them.
As it happened, there was no need for this, as a couple of passengers were getting off there. Still, they had to get their suitcases up into the bus, get their tickets and find a seat. With the rain, and all the passengers' damp coats the windows were steamed up. Conversation was difficult. Whispers could not be heard over the sound of the engine and they did not want the other passengers to hear what they wanted to say.
They agreed that they should write to each other -- the problem was that they did not have addresses to exchange. Ann was to be allocated a room in a nurses home when she reached whichever hospital ward that she was assigned to, and Peter would be assigned lodgings on his first day at work. He had booked one night in a room in a pub. They agreed that they would both write home to their mothers when they had addresses, and ask them to exchange them.
They arrived at the railway station. It was a small station in the middle of nowhere. It was a single track line, and the main purpose of the station was as a place where the track split to allow trains to pass each other in opposite directions. Peter and Ann were travelling in opposite directions, so they stood on different platforms, with the rails between them, waiting. Ann's train arrived first, and she got on and found a seat where they could still see each other. Peter's train arrived. He found a seat as near as possible to Ann's. They sat, a few feet apart, separated by two dirty windows and falling raindrops. They could not speak, but tried to mouth their messages to each other. As Ann's train started moving they both mouthed "I love you".
Many years passed, but events had conspired. With their children gone, both mothers soon moved from their cottages. Peter's to a room above the pub where she worked. Ann's mother's boss at the post office retired and she moved into the room above the shop. Getting a permanent address for both Ann and Peter took longer than expected. They were both busy with their new lives and duties. When they could eventually send forwarding addresses the letters were delivered to the old cottages, and lay on doormats for weeks until they were probably swept up together with the junk mail that always accumulates, and used to light a fire for new tenants.
Ann became a midwife. She spent her life bringing new life into the world or dealing with the sad cases where this was not to be. Peter eventually became an engineering inspector. His job was to travel the country visiting large projects to ensure that all was being done correctly, safely and in accordance with plans. He did eventually buy himself a small house near the company's main offices, but he soon realised that he used it so little that he rented it out.
Neither of them could understand why the other had not made contact, but they both respected the other's choice. They both spent long lives with a hole where their partner would have been.
A life on the wards is no good for nursing staff's backs. Ann's back gave her trouble for much of her adult life, and then arthritis further hindered her. She had to stop active caring and took on clerical roles. Eventually heart problems, angina, made even this too much for her and she had to take early retirement. Hospitals had been her life, so she still volunteered to meet, greet and give directions to patients and visitors.
Peter fared not a lot better. He had to be out and about in all weathers. Dust and fumes harmed his chest, but it was sun that eventually did for him.
He had been having aches and pains, and was prone to headaches, but he was on site when a pressure vessel failed. A shard of steel struck his leg causing a nasty open fracture. He was taken by ambulance to the local hospital, and while waiting on a trolley to be taken to the operating theatre he was comforted by, you must have guessed it, yes, by Ann. It was more than forty years since they had mouthed "I love you" to each other, but each could see the youthful face behind the ageing, the wrinkles, the greying and the hair loss. (The names on Ann's lapel badge and on Peter's notes helped as well.) Before they could discover and communicate much more than recognition Peter was wheeled away to be anaesthetised.
