The priest broke the contact and chuckled to himself, looking up from Alexander’s leg. A warm smile returning to his face. Clearly he could see the funny side in this. Alexander didn't believe it, humans invented stories and folklore to explain all sorts of things that they couldn't comprehend themselves. That's all most religion was, he told himself. Not that he had a problem with the priest or the rest of the village taking comfort in some kind of fantasy to satisfy their curiosity but it wasn't exactly the sort of answer that satisfied Alexander.

"Well, it was nice to meet…" Alexander drifted mid sentence as his ears perked up, in the distance outside the church, he could hear the sound of a high pitched squealing followed by a loud clunking, rattling sound.

"Something the matter?" The priest asked with curiosity. Alexander turned on the spot and pushed open the heavy church doors, squeezing through the small gap the moment he had the opportunity to. In the distance, directly opposite him and through the archway, the train had arrived at the station. His train. He glanced at his watch and back at the train, how he'd let himself get so distracted he couldn't understand. He rushed through the courtyard and into the station but the train was on the opposite side of the platform and with no bridge to cross he didn't understand how he could possibly get on it now that it was already blocking his only route across.

"Hello!" He yelled, hoping someone on the other side of the platform would be able to help him. There was no reply. "Is anyone there?!" He yelled again, louder this time to be sure that he could be heard over the sound of the train. Through the windows he could see that there were people on this train, it was much busier than the last but there didn't appear to be anyone getting off. Not like he had earlier that day. He waves his arms in the hopes of catching the attention of a passenger or a conductor but it was as if though no one could see him. He suddenly realised, his hands empty, that he'd left his briefcase in the church. He couldn't be without that, it was important for his meeting in the city. But if he went back to get them he definitely wouldn't be able to get the attention of the train. A crowd had gathered in the village behind him, people that had been in their homes or shops that he hadn't seen all came to watch what the noise was about. He needed his briefcase. With determination, as quickly as he could, he sprinted to the church, the priest stood in the doorway watching. Barging past him and rushing through to the front of the church, he grabbed his briefcase and as fast as he had entered he left.

"Please, wait!" The priest pleaded with him as Alexander rushed past a second time. The crowd somehow seemed larger, there appeared to be more people than he'd expected in the village, and all were watching as Alexander rushed through the village again. His world suddenly stopped as the train in the distance crawled away from the station and Alexander fell through the air head over heels. The pain in his foot only just reached his brain as he realised he'd tripped over an uneven part of the cobblestone courtyard. The train passed out of sight as he landed awkwardly on his hands, the force of his weight and the collision of the uneven stone surface below bruised his hands. His briefcase flew through the air and bounced ahead of him, the latch breaking open on impact. Papers flew out of the case, scattered across the cobbled ground. Alexander lifted himself up, his bruised hands struggling, whilst everyone around him watched. Not a single person came to his aid, all eyes were fixed on his leg. Alexander reached out to grab as many of the papers as he could, though some had already blown away in the wind; too far and too high to reach. After collecting everything he could manage, Alexander stopped in place. The crowd seemed to have grown. The chattering of loud whispers passed across the villagers. The children looking to their parents, the elderly looking in surprise, all with something in common. All missing a leg.

“What are you looking at?” Alexander spoke looking over at both sides of the courtyard, picking up what was left of his damaged briefcase and shoving the papers inside in any way that they would fit. His words seemingly made no difference, none of the crowd responded to him nor did they consider what they were doing to be rude. He felt like he was being silently judged, not just because of the public spectacle he’d made of himself due to his accident but because he was different. As if the villagers had turned into the very thing that the girl in the shop feared. Alexander tried to force the latch on his briefcase shut but it was no use, the metal was bent and would no longer close. He tried his best to force the latch back into its correct position but he couldn’t manage it. The pressure was building. Expectant eyes watching him, each slip of his bruised hand against the metal felt like another pair of eyes in the back of his head. He couldn’t handle being watched like this, being the centre of attention for so many people.

“What are you looking at?!” He snapped. He spun on the spot, almost tripping over his own feet, looking at everyone in the crowd around him. He was angry with them all. Angry he’d missed his train, angry he’d fallen over and broken his briefcase, angry he was being ogled like the village idiot, angry that he ever bothered to step foot in this backwards village in the first place. The anger reached its boiling point when he felt a gentle touch on his shoulder and a calming voice.

“Please, remain calm my child.” It was the priest, having rushed over to Alexander in the time of his outburst. Ordinarily, someone telling him to calm down would do the opposite and only make him angrier but not the priest. There was a tone of sincerity in his voice that made him respond quite positively to the old man's words. A great, deep sigh escaped Alexanders lips as he relaxed his tense shoulders.

“Everyone,“ the priest began in a commanding voice ”please return to your homes.” And the crowd dispersed, walking down the various paths that snaked past and around the church. They clearly respected the priest, Alexander thought to himself, almost like he was a leader of the village. With the dozens of eyes no longer watching his every move, Alexander could finally relax. His heartbeat slowed, he hadn’t realised quite how fast it was beating until that moment. What a turn this day had taken.

“Come, let’s return to the church.” The priest reached a friendly arm around Alexanders shoulder and began to guide him back into the building. Alexander took one last look behind him, looking through the archway back at the train station. Something about it appeared odd but he couldn’t quite place his finger on it. The aged hinges of the old church door creaked as the priest swung it open. Inside the church again, Alexander sat at the first available seat he could see, his heartbeat finally returning to its resting rate. He closed his eyes and breathed with deep, controlled breaths. The priest sat next to him.

“Do you know when the next train is?” Alexander asked, trying is best to look ahead to make a change to his mental schedule.

“Excuse me?” The priest asked, a dumbfounded confusion in his voice. Alexander's eyes shot open. The question he asked was simple, he didn’t feel the need to explain it again but there was that genuine sincerity from the priest again as if he honestly had no idea what Alexander was talking about.

“When does the next train arrive at the station? So I can board that one instead of the train I just missed.” Alexander explained but the priest seemed none the wiser.

“My child, no train has stopped in that station for generations.” The priest answered as honestly as he could and Alexander stood up from his seat. He turned away from the priest who had a look of worry on his face. A chill ran down Alexanders spine, the priest had joked earlier about the villages “sickness of the soul” to frighten Alexander but this wasn’t a joke.

“But… The train just stopped in the station not ten minutes ago!”

“Alexander, you’re not listening to me. There hasn’t been a train here for years!” Alexander had no idea how to respond, he had just been in the courtyard as had almost everyone else in the village. They must have heard the train arriving, they must have seen it at the station. Alexander remembered the faces he saw through the window. They were real, he hadn’t imagined any of it. A sick feeling rose from his stomach as he came to the shocking realisation that no one on the train heard him. No looked at him or responded to him. Was the train even real? Accepting that something was wrong, he asked out loud the most important question he had. “How did I get here then?” The priest stood up and walked closer to Alexander who backed further away with equally as many steps as the priest took closer to him.

“You came to us.” The priest replied, persisting as he walked closer to Alexander still but Alexander didn’t stop.

“No, I came here on the train. I was going to the city!” He tried to turn away from the priest but he couldn’t bring himself to do it, their eyes locked as he kept taking steps backwards. Picking up the pace to get away from the priest.

“As I keep telling you, no train has stopped here for years.” The priest continued.

“So two trains in a single day must be a rare occurrence for you.” Alexander asked, trying his best to poke holes in what the priest was saying. He didn’t sound as though he was lying, but for Alexanders own sanity he had to be.

“Alexander, this is no time for joking. I’m worried that you’re acting this way.” The priest tried his best to reassure him.

“What about the man at the station? The old man, he’s the one who told me that everyone in this town has a prosthetic left leg.”

“You may have seen an old man at the station but you couldn’t have arrived via a train, Alexander.” It suddenly clicked. Alexander noticed it, he hadn’t noticed it before because it was so normal for him to hear his own name.

“How do you know my name?” He was sure he hadn’t told the priest, their conversation hadn’t been very long and it had mostly concerned the village and everyone’s prosthetic leg. He hadn’t talked about himself at all, he hadn’t even said his name.

“Why, you told me.” The priest responded in such a way that Alexander wanted to believe him but he knew for a fact that it was a lie. And if he knew this was a lie then how could he trust anything else that the priest said.

“No, I didn’t.” Alexander replied, but the priest said nothing else. He simply walked closer to him, concern on his face. “No. I didn’t.” Alexander repeated with much more force as he continued to walk backwards. He walked into something behind him and stopped, his leg bashing against the raised area at the front of the church, the two had walked back past all the pews. Alexander climbed onto the platform and looked down at the priest.

“You came to us. You wanted to go somewhere you felt as though you belonged. You told me yourself, you didn’t like standing out amongst the crowd.” The priest said and just as Alexander had thought about everything else, he couldn’t fault what the man was saying. His mind drifted to being in the centre of the village and everyone watching him, to the way he’d been looked at by the man at the station and the girl in the shop. Everything about his experience in the town made him stand out. He hated it, he accepted to himself, but that had all happened after he arrived in the village. He hadn’t felt that way before today and he was certain that he hadn’t come here for that reason. He hadn’t even come here by choice, he was just passing through.

The doubt of that question lingered in his mind. He was just passing through, wasn’t he?

The priest climbed onto the platform, following after Alexander, but Alexander had stopped backing away. He was lost in his own thoughts, trying best to piece together what had happened. The reality dawned on him that he couldn’t remember anything before today. He thought he knew that he was going into the city from his home, something for his work, but he couldn’t honestly answer where he was from or what he did for a job or what he was travelling to the city for.

“I see it in your eyes, Alexander.” The priest spoke, using his name again despite the fact that Alexander knew it was a lie. He knew that he hadn’t told the man his name. It was like he was being taunted by his conflicting memories. “You know you came here to belong.” The priest spoke again and seemingly out of nowhere produced Alexander's briefcase. He must have left it by the seat at the back of the church, but he didn’t remember seeing the priest pick it up. He opened the case and retrieved from it a crumpled piece of paper, handing it out towards Alexander. Tenatatively, he took the paper from the priest. It was a letter, hand written on an old sheet of parchment it seemed, addressed to the priest of the village and from Alexander himself. Why would he have this in his briefcase if it was addressed to the priest. Alexander had to stop to ask himself how this made any sense. He refused to read it. It was lies, he could see through the obvious trick. He grabbed the paper in both his hands and tore it in half, taking the two pieces and tearing them again into four. And again. And again. Until it was practically unrecognisable. The tearing sound reverberated off the old walls.

“What do you want from me?!” Alexander yelled, but there was no echo. The sound was numbed and silence fell. The priest reached his hands for Alexanders shoulders and with one quick push shoved him into the pedestal behind him. Three loud thuds followed each other. One when his head hit the pedestal, one where the pedestal toppled over and hit the ground and a final when Alexanders head smacked against the stone floor. Darkness crept in his vision as his eyelids closed.