The train incident

I was travelling by train . I met an old man in the same coach who was a retired engine driver . Well using the word ‘retired’ would be wrong because he was actually removed from the job due to an incident . He shared the traumatic experience with me . He said that he was having a night shift on the night of December 12 , 1987.The train had slowed down at the chittoor station in Andhra Pradesh. He said that he was unaware that it is said to be a haunted station. His memory was vivid as if yesterday. There was no one on the station and it was all dark , damp and cold . There were no announcement s going on . He wondered if it was some kind of blackout . He remembers seeing a smoky figure at the corner and he thought that it must be some beggar smoking and started the train at the scheduled time . A sudden storm started howling loudly with strong winds. Chills ran down his spine . He said that all of this was somewhat eerie and unusually strange. Then came the incident due to which he had lost his job. The glass in the front supernaturally broke and the glass shreds flew all over the place . A glass shreds went into his eye . He then took the train to the next station as soon as possible with great difficulties as he found everything around him blurring out . He reported the incident in the station . With his eyes paining dreadfully , he went to the railway hospital then he knew that he had lost 70% of his sight. (Well , for being an engine driver you really need to have 100% perfect vision). I was then able to see him properly , his left eye’s corner was red as blood and his right eye was narrow , I could still see the stitches of glass cuts on his neck. He stopped the story abruptly . I saw his hands shaking and his face pale and white,as if he had seen a ghost . I followed his gaze out of the window and I saw that we were at chittoor station and there were no announcement going on nor was there anyone on the station . The same smoky figure in the corner and then I knew that the history was repeating itself…