After the last goodbye, the return.

Morning comes to a wedding in fragments: a glass with a little water still in it, a chair tipped toward a table, shoes near a door. The room has stopped asking people to arrive.

At eleven minutes past six the courtyard is empty except for Ines and Tomas, who could not sleep and have come down with a broom between them. The airport cars have already gone, Vera in the first of them with the empty garment bag across her knees. Rafael and Jun are on the early train in seats by the window, already sending messages. Mireille will take the slow one at ten, with Kasia to see her to the platform and the key, as it turns out, still in her handbag.

What remains is not the itinerary but its echo: the car back to the airport, the quiet train, the messages sent from a seat by the window. We carry home the proof that, for a few hours, the distance between us was crossed.

End of the line, for now.

Editorial note: A work of editorial fiction; people, places and makers are illustrative.