Lewis Oswald was found dead in his car. He had been hit by a train about thirteen miles from where his body was found. The train, after hitting the car, had pushed it to the station, arriving three minutes late. The conductor for the train, later found to be one of Oswald's distant relatives, was taken to the police station, for questioning. That is, he would've been, if he hadn't died of a heart attack in the car after attempting to run, repeatedly stating that he was late. The entire case was thrown out, as there was no evidence of any kind of foul play. Lewis Oswald had no enemies and no friends.

When Lewis Oswald was born, he nearly immediately snapped into to a routine. Everything with Lewis Oswald had to be on time. Anything even a minute out of place could bring him to tears. But, if everything went as planned, he was perfect. If everyone else went along with him, he would cry, would yell, wouldn't do anything wrong. And no one ever had a problem with Lewis Oswald. No one bothered him.

As he grew older, multiple situations had to be put into his routine. Different days had different schedules, and he had to wake up very early to plan and set his watch. So, on his birthday, his parents gave him a special clock. It could hold multiple schedules, so he could program a new one for everyday, and every occasion. Every day, he was driven by a series of perfectly timed alarms, set for every event of the day. And as far as anyone else could see, Lewis Oswald was perfect.

Soon, Lewis Oswald had to go to school. He made sure he had a copy of the school's schedule long before it started, so he could plan and program his clock. On his first day, he ran into a problem he hadn't planned for. People. He couldn't work his teachers and classmates into his schedule. They were unpredictable. They followed no set path. Everyday they would walk a different way. He hated them, he hated them more than anything else, but he didn't show it. And eventually, they stopped getting in his way. They had no reason to, as far as they knew, he was perfect.

He received perfect grades in school, and eventually moved to the middle school. In his new school, he multiple classes spanning throughout the building, and it took hours to plan everything out. In a way, he was exited, he lived for his routine, but he didn't show it. He had early in life decided that emotions were unpredictable, and could cause him to stray from his routine. His emotions scared him. He simply threw them out.

Middle school moved much the same as before, until one day, he caught a fever, and his mother forced him to stay home. He spent almost all of his time indoors and had never encountered sickness before. He had no plan to stay home. He didn't know where to go. He spent the entire morning in his bed, firmly clenching his sheets, shivering. Then, all of a sudden, he stopped, got out of bed, and made a plan in case the same thing happened again. He could not afford an imperfection in his routine.

High school and college were not much different, and his plan worked smoothly through them. Everyday was planned, nothing went wrong. He found a job typing numbers into a computer, and it suited him. The night before his first day at work, he sat at his desk and programed in every possible event he could think of that would need its own schedule. He looked up maps and carefully planned a route to his office. He went to bed, nearly excited over all of this. But emotions got in the way, and he had long since thrown them out.

That morning everything started on time. He got up, got dressed, ate breakfast, and headed out the door into his car. He planned a route with minimal traffic. Everything was going smoothly. Halfway to the office, a train crossed the road. He had not factored the train in. He sat in his car, madly trying to block all emotion as the train passed. He arrived at work 3 minutes late. He was shivering, and his co-workers told him to go home. But soon he recovered, and the drive home went smoothly. That night he sat at his desk and planned.

He woke up that day a few minutes early. He crossed the tracks a minute before the train arrived, and then, making sure to slow down as to not arrive early, he drove to work. If he had any emotion left in him, he would of been happy for this accomplishment. But no. He arrived at work with the same blank expression he had worn his entire life. And every day went on like this. And everyday he passed the train a second earlier.

The clock that was given to Lewis Oswald when he was young had one small glitch. So small, that the manufacturer had discovered it, and not bother to fix it. In the clock, every time the alarm went off, the clock stopped working for a fraction of a second. Now, most people used alarm once or twice a day, so it wasn't a problem. But Lewis Oswald had the alarm set to go off many times a day. He hadn't noticed the problem before, and it hadn't been important the few times he had needed to reset it. But now, he was exactly one minute away from the train, which arrived on time, every day.

Lewis Oswald hadn't noticed how the train passed sooner after him everyday. He was focused on nothing but his routine. And about a month after the first incident with the train, he saw everything going on schedule. He dressed, ate breakfast, and started driving to work. The days before that, he hadn't noticed the gate around the track lower seconds after he crossed. This day, the bell signaling the train went off the moment his car was centered exactly over the tracks. And as soon as he heard the bell, he stopped the car. He knew he wasn't supposed to cross when the gate was down, and he couldn't get in trouble with the police. He didn't have time. At the same time he was thinking that he would be late for work. He didn't think about the train. He thought about how he was late. And he knew it was already to late to fix that. He saw no answer. He saw nothing past his routine. Lewis Oswald died of heart attack, and seconds later he was hit by the train. And all that he thought was, "I'm late."

Want to comment on this Short Stories? Sign up to Edit Red and you will be able to comment on Short Stories and get access to: Upload your own stories and poems, get readers and their feedback, promote your work...