A short story for my son starting with "I could not stop myself". Teaching them creative writing :)

I could not stop myself from running head first onto an incoming train.

It was an exceptionally hot summer afternoon. Summer afternoons tend to get exceptionally hot near my college, thanks to the acres of barren rocky landscape surrounding it. It was my last day of college - the last exam of my final year. My mood was pensive; the exam had not gone well. I had never been a good student, so I was not very surprised at my academic performance. What worried me was that this was the end of my childhood. I was standing on one of life's precipice looking into the vast emptiness of an uncertain future. Compounding my pensiveness was the realisation that my small family would now be looking at me to support them. My family is really small. Father passed away five years back after a prolonged struggle with brain cancer. My elder sister, met with an unfortunate accident two years back and is now handicapped. She stays in bed most of the time. My mother is not very educated, but she is the strongest person I have seen in my life. She has held the family together. She works as a maid and struggles 14 hours a day, just to cover my sisters medical treatment and my education expenses.

My sister's accident was preventable. For as long as I live, I will live in eternal turmoil, realising every living moment that if I had not been caught in the moment of indecision - my beautiful sister would still have both her legs and would be happily married. I have vowed to support my family till my last breath and provide the best for them. It is only this thought that has kept me from going insane with guilt.

So, here I was, standing pensive waiting for the train to pass and the railway crossing to open, so I could rush to my home and feed my sister lunch.

The wailing of the child was so feeble that it was easy to miss it amidst the howling loo blowing through the open field and the long honks of the oncoming train. It was his tiny yellow shirt that stood out and drew my attention when I looked again. He must have been 100 meters away.. a tiny soul, wailing endlessly sitting near the railway track. A very uncommon sight in an exceptionally hot summer afternoon, so uncommon that my brain refused to acknowledge it for a moment. I strained my eyes to look past the heat induced simmer from the ground. Indeed it was a child, not more than 5 years old. Near him, I could see a pink cloth fluttering in the wind. And then the realisation struck that the pink cloth was a dupatta, most possibly of his mother who was lying prone and unconscious on the track.

A feeling of paralysis coursed through my body. I was transported back two years and could see my sister about to fall from our roof. It was Diwali night and we were celebrating on top of our newly build house. The roof was still not walled.. but it was the happiest Diwali for us. We had a house to ourselves - the last wish of my father fulfilled. My sister's marriage was finalised. My sister was happily running around with lighted sparkles and did not realize that she was fast approaching the edge of the roof. I saw it.. but was so shocked that I froze.. I could not move, could not shout and could see my sister continuing her run beyond the roof.

Not this time. It was a chance of redeeming myself. A chance of not spending the rest of my life drowned in the acid vat of remorse. This was the moment I got disembodied.. I could see myself throw my cycle and run like a possessed soul, head first into the moving train. Time seem to slow down; I felt as if I was moving through a pool of molasses. I could see my sister on the railway track in her pink salwar kameez and I had to save her; save myself.

I felt my hand grab the woman's leg and pull her off the track. My leg was not so lucky though. My ankle got caught in the track and when I awoke, I was in a hospital. My mother was besides me, my sister too. There was another woman whom I did not recognise. She laid a gentle hand on my head and said softly - "My brother, if not for you, it would all be lost. You now have two elder sisters."