Have you ever wondered why time always moves at an unpredictable pace? How will the pace change depending on what we were doing that day? With whom we were spending time with? How things escalated as you were just trying to enjoy your day?

Scratch that. It’s much more like trying to survive everyday since that is how Irene felt recently by all the things that have happened in these past few weeks.

With a tired expression, she let the escalator bring her down to the underground part of the station. Standing on the left side as a bunch of people with their rushed pace trying to reach the underground faster than her is moving on the right side.

Irene always snorted at the notion of rushing going home. Why would you rush to reach the place where you can relax for the rest of the night, when you can take a much slower pace and start to appreciate things that are moving around you?

With the tired security that was scattered around the station, eyes barely opened as the feeling of sleepiness started to kick in before their shifts ended, trying to keep the whole platform safe from thieves and thugs. Sometimes their faces contorted into annoyance because of some people who never came to the station and started to ask the whereabout of the precious cubicle of toilet is.

How the night entertainment like street musicians filling the noisy rush of a station with beautiful melodies of a song. Sometimes with their voices. Sometimes with a beautiful plucking of guitar strings. Sometimes with the beautiful melodies that come out from the friction of the stringed instrument. Sometimes with a beautiful blow of breath that could turn into different notes as they push certain buttons to change the voice.

And how in the end, people will just throw them a piece of their appreciation in the form of paper that has numbers in it. Somehow in the end, always being the most valuable thing one could ever get.

Irene let out a small huff as her feet stepped down from the escalator. Her eyes wander around the platform, trying to spot an empty bench for her to sit and rest her legs for some time before her train comes to pick her up.

When the brown orbs finally found one, the rectangular object inside her purse started to ring it's annoying voice, making her cursed inwardly before picking it up and putting it on her ear. “Hello?”

“Hi, Irene. Sorry to bother you now but I want to ask about the project with the food company in downtown?”

Irene let out a sigh as her mind picked up a certain small food company that just started their business several months ago, and asked for help towards their agency to help them promote their products. “Yeah, what about it?”

Her co-worker started to explain about the problem they stumbled upon as her sore legs dragged herself to reach the beautiful empty spot of the bench. With every step that she took, she felt the headache on her brain start to form as the annoying words keep spilling out from the mouth of her co-worker.

She let out a relieved sigh as she finally sat herself on top of the hard bench, handphone still pressing on her ear. “Didn’t the creative team already receive the summary of our meeting two days ago?”

“Yeah, but some things came up in the middle and they kind of asked us to reorganize it so they could design the promotional stuff better.”

Irene closed her eyes in frustration as her hand mindlessly reached for her calf, massaging it softly. She felt another person sitting beside her at the bench as she replied to her co-worker. “Fine. Is someone already arrange a new meeting to discuss this stuff?”

“It’s going to be on Thursday. I will send you more stuff for you to know about the problems more.”

She let out a hum as she bid her co-worker a small thanks and goodbye before closing off the call. A frustrated sigh slipped out from as her fingers kept doing a massaging motion to soothe the tense muscle of her calf. A result of her wearing heels for the whole day because she didn’t bring a pair of comfortable sneakers for her to change to.

“Bad day at work?”

Irene looked to her right, trying to check whether the woman beside her was asking the question to her or another person. Once she didn’t find any evidence of her holding a phone right beside her ear and there isn’t another person sitting beside her, she answered her question. “Can say like that.”

The woman hummed softly as her head bobbed slightly, the motion of understanding what she just experienced earlier. “Want to lash it all out?”

The long-haired woman raised her eyebrow as she leaned her back to the bench, having her full attention on the woman beside her because of the offering earlier. An offering that she wants to know more about the reason why the stranger beside her suddenly asked her that question.

The stranger just shrugged like the thing she offered wasn’t a pretty big deal. “I mean, some people tend to choose to lash out their emotion so the heaviness they feel inside themselves will lessen. And I think you might need to lash out several things just to let go some stresses under your nerves. If you want to, I can be the person who listens to your rants.”

“Why?”

A frown bloomed on the soft feature of the woman’s forehead. “What do you mean why?”

“I mean, why did you offer things to the person you just met a minute ago?”

“First of all, we didn’t know each other. So I can’t stab you in the back if I’m going to use your rant for my advantage. Second,” the woman shrugged before continuing, “I’m bored. And my train will not arrive here any sooner. Instead of dying from boredom, why don’t I just listen to someone’s rant?”

Irene hummed softly, now understanding the reasoning of why she offered that service earlier.

“It’s a win-win situation after all,” closed the woman as she gave the courtesy of the ball to her. The next move now depended on her decision whether to lash out her problems to the stranger or not.

Her brown eyes looked to the empty railway, contemplating about the offer inside her mind as she pushed back the chaos coming from her workplace for a while. She let out a sigh. Well, she’s also bored in this station. Why not make it fun by lashing out some of her building frustration? “Okay, I guess I will lash out.”

The woman flashed her a wide grin. “I’m ready to listen anytime.”

A soft chuckle slipped out from her lips before she let out her rants. “So, my superior, who has always been the tiest person alive, suddenly upgraded into a more ed up version of himself. I mean, he demanded something that is completely near too impossible to be done!”

The short-haired woman hummed. “What kind of things did he demand?”

Her brows furrowed in irritation as she continued to tell the story of her day. “He demanded that we are done researching what potential platform for our client to use as a purpose of promotion to expand their reach to the people tomorrow. When we were just given the summary and the things we need to learn about that company just three days ago!”

“Well, now that you are saying it, it is indeed impossible,” muttered the woman beside her softly. “What a crazy bastard he is.”

“I know,” sighed Irene in resignation. “And the problem just keeps piling up by how there is a new problem with the creative team when I receive the phone call earlier.”

“What kind of problem?”

“My team and the others have made this summary of what the creative team needs to do for the rest of the promotional stuff like designing contents for our clients to use. But somehow, in the middle of the road, the creative team stumbled upon something that made them can’t continue what they were doing right now. That’s why we will redo the talks and the summary to help them.”

The stranger winces from hearing her rants. “Oh God, that is the worst thing to do when you were working. Redoing everything.”

Irene just let out her snort out of the frustration that started to calm down inside of her after a few lashing out. “It’s just another pile of work after a pile of work that is still waiting to be done and somehow will just never be reduced by themselves. It keeps adding up and it's just frustrating the heck out of me because I can never see the surface of my desk anymore by how many files I have on top of it now!”

“Busy season, huh?”

“Can say like that.”

The stranger hummed again. Her hand rummaging something inside of her bag, picking out a bottle of mineral water and offering it to her. “Do you want some? I thought you might need some liquid help to wash down all the anger and stress.”

The corner of her lips quirked upwards as she took the offered bottle. “Thank you,” muttered her softly.

The woman flashed her a wide grin as she waited for her to finish drinking from her bottle patiently. “Feel much better?”

Irene blinked, twisting close the cap of the bottle as realization started to dawn in her mind. “Yes, actually. Thank you again for hearing my rants.”

“It’s not much,” chuckled the woman softly as she accepted her bottle of water back from her. “I mean, it’s just to kill some of my time, you know? Sometimes this station can be so boring for your own good. There is literally nothing to enjoy beside the sound of rushing steps of people fighting to get inside the train.”

“And the announcer’s voice announcing which train has just arrived on this platform.”

The woman let out a snort. “Yeah, that too.”

Somehow the universe suddenly designed to align in a perfect time. A familiar bell sound of a train announcement started to be played at the platform, announcing the arrival of the train that Irene needed to use to go back.

Irene sighed. Just in time when she started to grow comfortable with the stranger beside her.

“Well, I think that’s our cue to go our separate ways now,” said Irene with a little bit of disappointment as she stood up from the bench, getting ready to step inside the train.

“Of course,” nodded the woman.

Irene looked at her with a small smile plastered on her face. “Thank you again for the help earlier, um-“

“Wendy,” announced the woman whose name was Wendy. “My name is Wendy.”

The small smile on her face grew wider. “Well, Wendy. I’m Irene and it’s really nice to meet you tonight here. Especially after hearing my rants out.”

Wendy waved her hand in a dismissing motion. “It’s nothing much. I’m glad I could help.”

Irene nodded as the train finally stopped. Opening its door to let the passengers get off from the train and letting the new one get on the car. “I need to go now.”

The short-haired woman nodded as she flashed her a wide smile again. The smile that could light up the whole world when it turned dark. “Be careful on your way back, Irene.”

“I guess, see you again sometimes?”

“See you again soon.”