Trains.

Just a short story I wrote on holiday... enjoy!

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Trains.

I have to change trains here, at this station, one country train to another. I wrap my palms around the cardboard cup and sip my coffee; it is warm and familiar and settles easily into my stomach. I quietly ask myself again why I am going back there, to all the things I wish I could forget.
The people jostled, the pressing bodies struggling against each other for seats. I am calmly pushed toward a window seat on the last carriage. I do not mind. Within seconds the train has clackered and shifted forward, shrugging its way to my destination, and further again.
I pick at the acidic-smelling fabric of my seat and stare at my shoes. The floor is dusty. It smells dusty.
The rain pattered on the window in a hollow sort of way, as if trying to tell me that we were in this together, it and I, that somehow, the rain was lost too. I found myself inclined to believe it; in the same way a person can hear without listening, look without seeing.

For the thousandth time I wondered where you are now, my little Jericho… Do you remember when you were little? I would take you on the trains all the time
Are we going to the place with the yellow windows?
You’d ask me, smiling. You smiled so much back then, your lips stretching like great pink gashes of mirth from one proud cheekbone to the other. Your face was made to smile…
I must have blinked, to find the country sifting past my window had transitioned into dense city-central without my notice. I glance at my watch, half an hour is missing: of course I had fallen asleep; there was nothing else to do.

I focus my attention an the window again, my eyes pour into the cityscape, beneath it’s glassy façade, thinking about construction and composition, of great iron girders and the smooth, drum-tight skin around your eyes when you were angry. Jericho, Jericho, Jericho, Jericho… your name was so bitter in my mouth… though it only made your eyes so shockingly sweeter.
Before long I am so absorbed in this daydream that I do not notice the train stop at some quickly forgotten station.
I am not looking as the doors hiss-clatter-hiss open, giving a tiny window to a cluttered, sunlit little platform, quaint and endearing in its namelessness.
People file on, and people file off the train, though more the latter; I hear her shuffle her feet as she takes her seat, two down, across, and facing me.

I have not looked at her yet, but she is rustling around in her satchel, I can hear the mild protests of leather and canvas and ragged fingernails clicking against each other. The doors shut with another hiss-clatter-hiss and a suction of air puckers through our cabin, it is neither warm nor cold. People shift, and the brushes of air bring their vague, muddled scents to me, leaning against my window.
She smells of flowers and piss.
Just like you.
It startles me, so I finally look at her. She is sitting with her tongue between her teeth, her thumb tracing circles on her iPod as she chooses a song; though her earphones are not in, hanging superfluously from the zipper of her pale blue hoody. A half-eaten lollipop nestles awkwardly between her fingers, and I wonder why I hadn’t smelled it, but really could not care less.
I want to tell her about you, my little Jericho, I ache to tell her how we found that dead fox in the blackberry patch that summer; how we carried it all the way home to show Grandpa there was another fox den nearby; even though the stiff, weeping corpse reeked like nothing else on earth.

In my mind, I imagine a whole conversation with her; she reminds me so much of you, Jericho, and that’s what we talk about, mostly; she says things like how she would’ve liked to meet you, ect.
And the conversation would go on, back and forth, until she asks me where I am going today; and it will stick in my throat like a mouthful of lead and mercury, until I can finally whisper,
I am going to the place with the yellow windows.

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(for a sketch of Jericho, click Here)

Tanith's Escapades- some good reasons why keyboards can't scream.

Once again, Tanith was in one of her moods, one could almost argue Tanith was always in one of her moods- not to her face, of course, but there you go;
Erin now had more confidence than a Diva, thanks to Tom's quick thinking and a screaming match with Shannon that effectivley slammed the gate shut on Tanith's any hope of sitting on the fence- not that there'd been any doubt in her mind over sides anyway.
..This is how things were with Tanith, there were never really any shades of grey.

As for right now,
She rubbed her tired eyes and jabbed at the keyes indifferently, the LCD screen flickered and an instant message popped up:
"Hey Tan, its Tom- havent talked to you in a while: ev'rything ok?"
Tanith scowled at the screen and flicked off the computer without bothering to shut it down. In truth, she wasn't sure why she still wasn't talking to Tomas -after all, he'd saved the day with the whole Erin thing... she just didn't have the guts to admit she was wrong. Apologies never really came easy, especially after you'd ruined something like that with blind pig-headedness.

She sat there for a while, with her cheek against the cold, grainy wood of the desk; dirty fingernails drumming mindlessly, irritatedly.
With a determined growl, Tanith suddnely leaned over to kick the bone-box into life. mechanism whirred and the monitor stirred drowsily.
With decided, almost angry strokes, Tanith wrote:
"Out of Eostrogen, next mood swing: T-minus ten minutes...."
She leaned back in the chair and waited, then
"TANITH? -heck, i didnt expect a reply; what's up?"
Her eyebrows raised in confusion and she tapped out another line, erased it all, and tried again:
"I dunno Tom, I guess I just dont know how to talk to you anymore... are we still ok?"
There was a longer pause this time, Tanith was four seconds from turning off the screen in disgust when Toms reply rippled over the monitor:
"No, not really, this is kind of hard Tan, but I dont think we'll ever be what we were... you saw to that..."
Teeth clenched, she beat her answer into the kerboard with rising desperation,
"I thought you might say that."

There was no reply, and Tanith wanted to yell: "So why'd you bother in the first place, huh?!" but of course, that would be almost as futile as her black moods.
Head in her hands, elbows on the desk, she sang to herself quietly, Oh, this is how it goooes baby, I'll get angry at your words and I'll head hoooooooome.... she trailed off at the part where the girl goes back home and says sorry.
She stared out the window, and like the proud member of Gen. Y she was, relished the misery as it slid smoothly through her veins, all whispering and irridescent.
Sometimes, the truth you get is never the truth you want, even if you did see it coming.

Biting into the sour flesh of her bottom lip; Tanith slowly, grimly crushed her own, hissing, spitting ego with a growing sense of determination and disgust.
Tommorrow. She would apologise tomorrow.

She did not want him back, -it would not have been in her nature to do so-, but she did want his forgiveness. She was not likely to get it, but for once just knowing why she did things was a good enough reason, after all, it was long overdue.

Oh, this is how it goooes babe, 'cos I'll be back before you knooow, before you know....

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