Arrivals and Departures

There was no ticking. No hum of fluorescent lights. No sense of before or after. Just a room, vast and quiet, with two doors: one marked ARRIVALS, the other DEPARTURES.

Malcolm Forrester stood at the DEPARTURES door, clutching a folded newspaper like a lifeline. His obituary stared back at him, printed in solemn serif: “Dr. Malcolm Forrester, 68, beloved professor of physics, passed away peacefully in his sleep…” The ink didn’t smudge when he touched it. He adjusted his spectacles, though he no longer needed them. Habit and ritual still lingering. The room was lit by a soft, ambient glow; neither warm nor cold, neither day nor night. It reminded him of the twilight between equations, the moment before a theory collapses into proof. Behind him, the DEPARTURES door clicked shut with a sound like memory. He turned, but the door had vanished. Only the wall remained, smooth and indifferent. To his left, a screen showed his funeral: his daughter Eleanor, heavily pregnant, weeping into a handkerchief embroidered with stars. He watched himself being lowered into the earth. Eleanor placed a lantern beside the oak coffin. He hadn’t lit one in years. Malcolm stepped back, heart aching in a way that had no pulse. He didn’t feel dead, he felt paused. He sat on the smooth bench at the centre of the room, the newspaper still in hand. He whispered to himself, “If time doesn’t exist here, then grief must be eternal.” He closed his eyes, thinking of Eleanor’s mother - his wife - who had died thirty years ago. Cancer. Thirty-two. Now, in this place beyond entropy, the ache returned.

The ARRIVALS door creaked open; not with the solemnity of a hinge, but with the musical lilt of wind chimes. Malcolm turned, startled by the intrusion of joy. She burst through like a comet; small, bright, and utterly unafraid. Her trainers lit up with each step, blinking blue and orange. A fox-shaped rucksack bounced on her shoulders, and in her arms she cradled a photo album.
“Is this the adventure?” she asked aloud. “It smells like old books and new stars.”
“You’re not lost?” Malcolm blinked.
“Nope,” she said, plonking down beside him. “I’m expected. My friend looks after people. He said I’d meet someone important here.” She opened her album. Photographs bloomed—some black and white, some in colour. Malcolm saw his own face, younger, smiling beside the woman with wind-chime laughter. He saw Eleanor, and then he saw a toddler with wild curls and a fox-shaped rucksack.
“That’s me,” he whispered, pointing to the man in the photo. The girl nodded.
“And that’s me,” she said, tapping the toddler. “I’m your granddaughter.” Malcolm felt the floor tilt.
“That’s not possible. I died before—”
“I know,” she said gently. “But time doesn’t exist here.” He looked down at the obituary. The ink shimmered, aware of its own paradox: Survived by his daughter, Eleanor Forrester, and her unborn child.
“I’m not born yet, but I will be,” the girl continued. “My friend said you’d need someone to talk to. He said you were grieving in circles. That you needed a spiral.”
“A spiral?”
“Something that moves forward and backward at the same time,” she said. “Like stories. Or love.” He stared at her. He had spent his life studying time's curvature. But this was time as emotion.
“She misses you, you know,” the girl said, her expression soft. He looked up sharply.
“You’ve met her?”
“She’s with my friend. Where I came from. Where you’re going.” Malcolm’s breath caught in his throat.
“She talks about you for infinity,” the girl said. “She says you still hum that song when you think no one’s listening—the lullaby with the falling notes.” He had. He hadn’t touched the piano keys in years. The melody had become a phantom.
“She says you’ll recognise her by the way she laughs,” the girl added. “And by the way she forgives.” Malcolm closed his eyes. The grief he’d carried for decades began to shift—not dissolve, but rearrange. He opened his eyes, and the girl flipped the album to a page near the centre. It was a drawing. Two lanterns. One dim, one bright.
“She said you’d understand this,” the girl whispered.
“We used to light lanterns every solstice,” Malcolm murmured. “One for memory. One for hope.”
“She said you’d forgotten how to hope.” He touched the page.
“I did. I couldn’t bear the contrast. One always felt heavier.”
“She said you buried the bright one,” the girl replied. “But it’s still glowing. Just quiet. But I haven’t forgotten. I’ll look after her. Your daughter. I promise.” Malcolm’s phantom tears began to fall—silent, weightless, real. They marked a shift in gravity.
“She said you’d try to calculate everything,” the girl said, smiling. “But some things aren’t equations. Some things are stories. This is love. It doesn’t need proof. It just needs remembering.” Malcolm let out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding.
“She forgives you,” the girl said. “For the silence. For the forgetting. For the way you folded your grief into your work.” Malcolm closed the album slowly.
“She said you’d try to close the book,” the girl said. “But it’s not a book. It’s a door.” The girl reached into her rucksack and pulled out a small lantern; bright, flickering, alive. She placed it in his hands.
“For hope,” she said. He held it carefully. It pulsed gently, like a heartbeat. Malcolm watched the girl tuck the album away. He cleared his throat.
“This friend of yours… you’ve mentioned him several times. What is he?”
“He’s not really a ‘him.’ He’s more like a rhythm,” she said. “Like the part of a song that holds everything together. Not the melody, not the lyrics. Just the part that makes you feel safe. He waits in the quiet. He holds things when they fall apart.”
“Entropy’s opposite.”
“Maybe,” she grinned. “Or maybe he’s just love that doesn’t forget. He’s the part of the story that doesn’t end.” A soft chime rang through the room. The girl stood, her rucksack settling.
“That’s me. I have to go. I’m being called.” Malcolm rose. The lantern pulsed.
“Will I see you again?”
“You’ll know me by the way I laugh.” Malcolm knelt.
“Tell Eleanor—”
“I will,” she said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “She’ll be okay. She’s stronger than you think, and softer than you remember.” Malcolm looked towards the DEPARTURES door. The funeral was over. The mourners had dispersed. “She said you’d hesitate,” the girl added. “But you don’t have to.”
“What’s waiting for me?”
“A garden, a piano. woman who forgives, and thirty years of catching up to do.” His phantom tears fell as release. The girl walked towards the ARRIVALS door and it opened like a sunrise.
“Oh,” she said, pausing at the threshold, “and my friend says thank you.”
“For what?”
“For remembering, for letting go and for lighting the lantern again.” The girl stepped through the ARRIVALS door. It closed behind her with a sound like laughter. Malcolm turned towards DEPARTURES. The door stood open, quiet and inviting. He stepped forward, carrying hope like a lantern. As he crossed the threshold, he didn’t feel erased. He felt rewritten.

Epilogue: The Reunion

The room was too bright. Eleanor squinted against the sterile glare, sweat cooling on her skin as the nurse wrapped the newborn in a soft, lemon-coloured blanket. Her husband, Jamie, was literally bouncing on the balls of his feet, grinning.
“She’s here,” he whispered.
“Jamie, sit down before you combust.” He kissed her forehead, kissed the baby’s, then did a little spin. “She’s perfect. She’s got your nose. And my ears. Poor thing.” Eleanor reached out, cradling the baby against her chest. The tiny heartbeat thudded against her skin.
“She’s warm,” Eleanor whispered. “Like a lantern.” The nurse smiled, checking the baby's blanket.
“And what’s this little one going to be called, then?” Jamie sat beside Eleanor, his hand resting on hers, his grin impossibly wide. “Clara. Her name is Clara. After her grandmother, Eleanor’s mother.”
“It’s a beautiful name,” the nurse said gently.

Eleanor nodded. “She died when she was thirty-two and I was seven.” The nurse paused, her expression softening. “I’m so very sorry for your loss. That must have been incredibly difficult.” Jamie squeezed her hand.
“She’d be proud.” He said. Eleanor looked at Clara again.
“She’ll carry her memory and her brightness.” The nurse jotted something on the chart, then stepped out to give them a moment. The room quieted, Jamie leaned his head against Eleanor’s shoulder, humming the lullaby Malcolm used to play - off-key, but close enough to make her chest ache.
“I wish he could’ve met her,” Eleanor said softly, speaking of her father. “He would’ve taught her about stars and spirals and why time doesn’t behave.”Jamie nodded.
“He’d have built her a telescope before she could walk.” Eleanor smiled, tears slipping down her cheeks. “He died before she was born. But I think… I think he knew.”
“How?”She kissed Clara’s forehead.
“Because she feels like a reunion.” Outside, the sun was rising. Eleanor closed her eyes, listening to the baby’s breath. Somewhere, she imagined her father lighting a lantern. One for memory. One for hope. And this time, both were burning.