The Message

    As the train rolled into the station, the horns blew, signaling our arrival. The sound jerked me awake from my restless sleep, and I could swear that I remember the smell of the anxiety in the air all around me. I felt as though all the passengers were watching and scrutinizing my every move. But even so, I proceeded to exit the car totally and completely unsuspected.

    All my life, I’ve had a gift that enabled me to fly under the radar and keep a deceitfully innocent appearance at the most critical of times. It was a gift that I learned to love. My mother always found it truly uncanny (which was my favorite part) and I learned that one could always be the most productive and do the most damage when invisible. There was a thrill that came from sneaking around and being faced with a challenge that I found irresistible, which is, of course, one of the main reasons why I became a spy.

    Needless to say, that was not my only reason for doing so. Another part of my decision came from my mother. All she ever did was talk about how her little girls needed to hurry and grow up so we could marry rich men and save ourselves from her awful fate of “wretched poverty” as she called it. Ironically, we weren’t even that poor at all. We had a decent house and there was always food on the table, so from my perspective, things weren’t even really that bad at all. Nonetheless, the only thing she wanted for us to do was to become rich housewives who sat around eating nothing but bon-bons all day. And when you would ask her about love, she would give you a funny look and say, “Love? My dear Anna, why in the world would you waste your time caring about silly things like that?” To her, all that anyone needs in life is money and beautiful things. And I couldn’t stand it. 

    I am not necessarily saying that I will never settle down, because I would like to one day. But I would want it to be for the right reasons. I would want there to be a mutual love between us that would go on until the end of time. My five other sisters however, have clearly proven that they have none of the same feelings as me. All but two of us have gone on to marry extremely miserly men that mean nothing to my sisters but their dime. But that was not what I was going to choose.

    You see my family has never really been in favor of my decisions since my father died. But I didn’t let it bother me anymore. I knew that he would be proud of me for following his counsel, and that was all that mattered to me. We all chose our own paths in life, so I let them do what they may.

    The path that I had chosen was one that I found extremely satisfying. With everything from pumping adrenaline to constant wariness, being a war spy forced me to go where no one else would go, and explore where no one else would explore. This brings me back to my current mission: the message.

    I had been entrusted with an important piece of information from the agency that was to be delivered to our top operative in the system, who was currently operating in the enemy army. He also happened to be my best friend.

    William was his name. But I called him Will. Will and I had been friends ever since we were little children. The two of us had grown up with the same dreams and we had both followed them the exact same way as the other. Together, we had accomplished a great number of missions that were critical to the cause, and we made an exquisite team. We were unbreakable in every way.

    Interrupting me from my thoughts, a shoving passenger plowed through the crowd ahead. The entire car was tired enough as it was from the long ride, so this made everything so much worse. Huffs and puffs came from every which way and grumpy remarks were made without hesitation. When I finally got out onto the platform and away from the horrendous crowd, I immediately scanned the area for the nearest market to continue on my mission. The plan was that I would act as if I was a grocery shopper at the small market on the platform, and when paying for my items, the employee behind the counter (who was actually another Secret Line agent) would take my bag and swiftly swap it out for another that contained my fake identity and the message.