My past is mine

By Gerda Rhoads
Take one tiny memory out of a man's life—and the entire universe may turn topsy turvy.
Gerda Rhoads was born in Vienna and came to the United States with her parents by way of London and Rio. She was educated at Hunter College, became a ballet dancer, took up painting and has done some very charming canvases. Then she married a painter and they went to Paris and she turned to writing. Sounds glamorous, doesn't it? With the publication of this her first story Gerda Rhoads proves her pen is glamor-tipped too.
The voice asked at Eddie Tomlinson's elbow, Is this seat free?
Eddie nodded, and hardly looking around, picked up his hat which he had carelessly put on the seat at his side. A little impatiently he placed it on the rack overhead. Then he went back to his contemplation of the wooded hills through which the train was threading its way.
It was the first time he had been in the country since it happened and perhaps he had allowed himself, against his better judgment, some unconscious hope. Possibly because it was autumn, the very best part of autumn for being in the country. Certainly he must have allowed himself to hope, otherwise he would not again be feeling the sharp despair, which in recent months had subsided into a bleak and monotonous resignation.
Dreary, isn't it? said the voice of a stranger.
Eddie turned sharply towards the man who had taken the seat next to him. Could it be? Could the same thing have happened to this man? In that case the psychiatrists would have been proved wrong and ... well, nothing would be changed really. But perhaps it meant some ray of hope. At least he would not be so alone, he would be able to talk to this man. They could talk about it together. He almost blurted out the question right away. But he'd had so many unpleasant experiences with it that he'd refrained from asking it for a long time, and now the habit of silence held him back.
He looked at his neighbor more closely. The man's skin was freckled, he could tell that, and the hair rather light. There was something vaguely familiar about the eyes, about the whole face, but these days people tended to look rather alike ... or anyway, more so than before.