Snowflakes the size of plates tumbled from the sky as George trudged from the office to the station. The trains were delayed. It was freezing and he probably had hours to kill. He hated pubs but the Railway Arms might at least be warm, so he went in.
He saw Potter from Accounts at the bar. The man was a bully and George despised him. But sitting next to him was a raven-haired woman of such beauty it put a lump in George’s throat. And she had also noticed George. It was like a flash of lightning.
She was Potter’s sister, Anne. By the time George’s train arrived he and Anne were one. They met the next weekend and within two years married. Three children arrived in quick succession.
Alan, the middle one, was a mathematical genius but no one in the family could account for this, since none could add nor subtract. Alan went to Cambridge and quickly established an academic career.
Unlike his parents, Alan did not enjoy a stable family life. He lacked commitment but he was very handsome in a matinee idol way; also, there was the brain. Alan thought he was having a series of inconsequential relationships and he never learned he had fathered four children to separate mothers.
Charlie, inherited his father’s genius. He became a doctor and aged forty-five discovered the cure for cancer.
Humanity celebrated Charlie, but nobody realized they owed all those saved lives to a cancelled train one snowy night.
Words: Richard Rooney
Illustration: A.I.
Flash Fiction 250
Flash Fiction 250 