He pushed the cart across his freshly prepared floor, one wheel fluttered in the air, another squealed as it turned. The yelping ricocheted over rows of dusty benches and off the sullied, derelict stairs of the station’s lofty entrance.

Musings of yesteryear filled his rueful, old mind. He recalled days when locomotion and constant commotion were commonplace, when the air was heavy with hazy voices and thunderous crowds.

Turning back to a clattering of footsteps in the reverie of his reminiscence, the mop fell from his hand and hit the floor. The splash of its reverberation flooded the grand hall.

With wavering, wrinkled fingers the old man reached for the wooden mop; his aged back felt the strain as it bowed. “We never heard an echo back then, my loyal friend,” he uttered in a noble tone.

Wrapping the handle in his crooked fists, he tried pushing down to straighten his trembling spine, but the cart slipped below him and forced his twisted body to the floor.

He heard a train far away and closed his eyes.