help me find this short story please!

[mechanicalpencil]

I don't remember much unfortunately but the atmosphere has stayed with me decades later.

It was a short story.

There was a young woman in a room. Sombre atmosphere, dark, clock ticking.

She seemed to be planning an escape/leaving to start a new life. She had (maybe) prepared the time of the train she was going to leave on.

Does this ring bells with anyone?
I would love to read it once more.

She changed her mind in the end and ended up staying…

Postponing her plans to leave to another day.

A bit more has come back to me.
No reasons are given as to why she wants to leave or where she will go. It’s very atmospheric.

Try putting what you remember into chat gpt!

Sometimes Raymond Carver's stories are like this - set on a threshold decision, and simple.

This!

Thanks for the suggestion-ok, so I tried Chat GPT but didn’t know. Suggested Alice Munro and Raymond Carver.

Aghhh…

Not James Joyce’s Eveline? Though she’s going on a ship, and actually gets as far as embarking before she freezes.

Thanks all

@Arquebuse
no, but I’d like to read that

It’s in his collection Dubliners. Critics fight about whether it’s a coded warning story about the protagonist actually being traded into ‘white slavery’ in South America rather than a romantic elopement…

Could you be thinking of Kate Chopin's The Story of an Hour?

A woman hears that her husband has died in an accident and spends an hour contemplating life without him . . .

It's a great and very short story, really packs a punch.

https://www.wlwv.k12.or.us/cms/lib8/OR01001812/Centricity/Domain/1309/Kate%20Chopin%20Story%20Texts.pdf

@StellaAndCrow
no, it’s not that one

There is a Roald Dahl story that is ringing bells, I'll try and have a deeper think!