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He decided to catch the train at the New Ministries Station even though the Atocha Station was closer. He needed to clean up his mind, walk a bit, and Atocha always was more congested.
He bought a tourist class ticket and declined to buy a return ticket for half the price. Despite the recommendations of the girl at the counter referred to the AVE, he preferred to take Altaria train, although it took a little longer, it brought back to him very good memories. He declined too to arrive non-stop to Lorca, for a strange melancholy that had taken over him and he wanted to recreate the same journey that he made every summer when he was a child. He remembered that loaded up with bags and suitcases, they took the train up to Carmen Station —in the middle of Murcia’s downtown—, and at that little stopover his parents, due to his good behavior during the trip, let him choose a big ice cream with balls of different flavors. That ritual became the only real moment that he experimented with his parents. He did not remember to have lived another moment that made him feel such illusion and excitement as those trips to his grandfather’s home. At least nothing that the three of them had lived together. When his father accepted the position of the editor in chief in La Razón, they lost him forever.
When they left the station in the big illuminated sign appeared the names of the next stations that they will stop, Jonás took out the tray in his spot and connected the laptop. A quick glance to the main pages of the newspapers confirmed him that they all were referring to the same topic; the meeting that morning and the lack of consensus. He glanced again at the sign that indicated that they left Madrid behind and the hour of the arrival to Murcia was estimated in four hours and fourteen minutes. He took out the laptop, connected the iPod and felt asleep.
When the megaphone of the train announced the end of the journey, he woke up startled. He had slept during all the journey, improper way in him, as much he used to sleep only a few minutes leaning against the window. The breaks’ bellows resounded with great noise above the people’s muttering, and still sleepy he waited to stand up until the rest of the wagon was emptied. When he stood up he went to take his suitcase and he realized that he had a pain caused by the wrong position used during his four hours of travel, and he also had difficult in focusing; “how can it be that I felt asleep for so long? I am getting older” he told himself.
The Carmen Station had changed too much since he was there the last time at twelve. Very little was left of that small stopover, and although it was far from being one of that great railway stations, the one of Murcia had cleaned up its appearance compared to others much bigger but less reformed. A little bit lost he went to the line of the ticket office where the tickets to the surroundings were sold and he bought one for the next train to Aguilas’ direction. As informed in a big bright sign where were the schedules’ parade, his train departure was at 3:45 pm; so that he had to wait an hour and a half. He decided to eat something, because since his breakfast based in coffee and tart he had not tasted anything, and he was starving. He searched a little restless for the ice cream shop and checked with disappointment that in its place was a little bazaar that prayed in its slogan, “if we don’t have it, it doesn’t exist”. He went in Breads & Company and ate a delicious ham, bacon and melted cheese sandwich. He checked his cell phone two or three times while he devoured his snack, but there were no calls or messages. “Better this way” he thought, even though for some reason he couldn’t guess, he felt disappointed. Ten minutes before the outskirts train made its departure, Jonás was sitting looking with sadness and melancholy through the window.
****
In size it had grown a little, but the platform of the Aguilas’ Station was right the same way that Jonás remembered it as a child. The tiny canteen, the end of the journey with those disused railroads and with its wagons —who had exceeded its services—, waiting to be dismantled to dress more up to date machines.
Jonás didn’t wait for a welcome committee, but neither that helplessness. He was the only one that descended from the train, although that was the last stop. There was no soul in the platform, neither in the canteen, except for the bored owner who did not deign to look up from the Marca. Outside, a sun of justice hit him immediately, and he was surprise to see no parked cars. It is true that in Murcia at 4 pm in June, you can’t wait to see crowds in the streets, but he didn’t expect such emptiness. He walked along the bus station and asked for a taxi in the nearest stopping place. The sleepy taxi driver asked him the address with rude manners, and when Jonás told it to him he seemed to listen that the taxi driver cursed under his breath. When he arrived at the Vida Plena’s hostel he suddenly had butterflies in his stomach when he saw his parents’ Mercedes parked there.