It had been a morning like any other at the station.
He looked at the platform’s clock. He was comfortable for time. In three minutes the city to city express would come through, followed five minutes later by his regular train. It seemed to be more crowded than usual with his platform packed with commuters all waiting for the same train. A number of passengers were standing a bit too close to the edge for his liking. Especially a small boy, who was deliberately jumping up and down at the very edge as a way of taunting his anxious mother. The first rumblings of the nonstop express were heard when the boy fell and his mother started to scream.
Pushing people aside and jumping down after him was the man’s immediate reaction. The boy had knocked himself out and lay across the rail when he scooped him up. The train was nearly on them and there was no time to make it back up. The man held the unconscious boy tightly close to him, as he crouched against the wall below the platform.
When the thunder of the express faded, the man lifted the boy to the waiting arms of his mother. The commotion that followed with people crowding round the mother and the boy while others were calling for an ambulance and giving medical advice at the same time. It was when a large woman pushed her way through the crowd loudly proclaiming to be a nurse that the rescuer managed to make his way further back along the face of the wall and almost completely unnoticed, quietly slip away. It was several minutes before people began asking if anyone saw were he went. Nobody could honestly say they did.
The man in question didn’t go in to the office that day, but called in to say that he had a cold. Not true, of course. However, what he did have was torn clothing, a number of severe scrapes and several nasty bruises. He realised that this meant that his cold was going to have to last a few days.
The incident went viral on the day, with lots of clips from people’s mobile phones being watched across social media platforms and the internet. He was positively uncomfortable with the exaggerated praise that was being heaped on the missing celebrity.
He winced at the thought of being caught up in the whole thing. He didn’t want cameras on him. He didn’t want to stand there holding the award or a medal, saying how humble he felt or how he didn’t see himself as a hero, or how he was sure anybody would have done what he did.
No, he didn’t want that.
Being humble really didn’t come into it and of course he was a hero. Also, he knew that not too many would have the courage to do what he did.
It was enough to know this… the rest he could avoid.