A train that runs all the way out of the town
Prompt: Anticipation
There is a train that runs all the way out of the town and
into blue-green mountains and richly coloured fields. It runs all the way out to big, beautiful
lakes, sparkling in the sun. To lands
she can only dream of, hazy in the mist.
Her eyes can follow the train, a sliver of shining metal like a crescent
moon, or a silvery teardrop, receding smaller and smaller and smaller until it finally
recedes into the unknown she longs for. There is a train that runs all the way
out to the cities she’s heard of, with tall, gleaming skyscrapers blocking out the
skies.
Sometimes, she stands at the train station, so close to the
crying mothers waving goodbye, so close she can almost feel the excitement and
anxiety and freedom all tumbled in with the smell of coal burning and the low
rumbles as the train begins to set off. Sometimes,
time passes before her eyes as she stays there, long after the train is gone.
Only one train runs all the way out of the town she lives
in. The town, so small it never makes it
on a map. A town of dusty dirt paths and
heavy hearts and deep, endless skies that could swallow you whole, that shine
too bright. She hates the skies. She hates feeling so vulnerable under
them. Her world is too big, too empty,
too cold. Too lonely. The winds wrap tight around her in a land
flat and plain, with shadows so long in the daytime.
So she dreams of the big cities, teeming with people and
artists and musicians on the street, those tall, gleaming skyscrapers blocking
out the skies above her. She dreams of
the smiling spectators, the dancing, the drinking, the mass of bodies that she
can reinvent herself in. She wishes for
the day that she will be on the train that runs all the way out of the town.
Until that day comes, she’ll stand at the train station, eyes
following the silver of the train, dreaming in anticipation for things that
could be.
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