I’ll be on the train. It’ll be an underground train, like the subway, but in an airport. One door is both the exit and entrance with a few people trickling in and out. The train’s name will be Bart and my father will have warned me about it. The train will have pastel colors of gum, crafted into inappropriate pictures of body parts and messages in another language.
I’ll know that if I was in another world I’d call it art and take a photo to show my kids.
I’ll be standing. Sucking on a mint and molding it to the shape of my tongue. Dust will be falling from the ceiling and landing on the cloth seats. Somebody else will have warned me about the cloth seats, too. Something about if you sit on them, years of sweat and sex and old man cologne will blow up in your face like a pop-up card.
In the next second, she’ll stand beside me. It won’t be anything big. Just her, entering the train and walking over to grasp the overhead handles. No physical contact or glances or words exchanged.
She’ll be pretty. Short, white hair and earbuds hanging limply from her ears and tangling in her sweater. Two red studs like the eyes of a monkey. My kids will grow up in four different states and they’ll know that she is what Utah would look like.
I’ll wonder why I feel this way. It’s not love. Or at least not the type you can find in half-dead roses at the florist beside the highway. And definitely not the kind next to a coffee machine in an office that leads to a wedding in a motel and three ungrateful children.
It’s odd, this feeling. Giddy. I’ll think about how I used to smile at people riding the train. I’ll want to smile then. It was a basic skill in kindergarten, learning how to smile. I’ll remember the classroom with the round glasses and aloe vera plants named wild things from a 2000’s Marvel movie. But it was so simple, just turning the corners of your mouth up into a crescent shape like the moon in early December. I’ll have stopped smiling by then, when I’m on the train. And it won’t be taught to my kids anymore. That’s what I’ll know while standing there.
What I also know is that the year is ending. Time is skidding to a stop, only to be picked up again at midnight. Midnight, so close I can almost touch it. Three cracked hands on the clock, almost vertical. It’ll be pretty ironic, really. I’ll be on the Bart train, heading for Terminal D, in the last seconds of the year. And I won’t be thinking about who I left behind.
‘I met a girl on the train,’ I’ll tell my kids on the phone.
‘Why did you leave?’ they’ll ask me.
‘She looked Italian.’
‘Everyone is Italian,’ they’ll respond, and hang up soon after.
The girl will be running her hands down the pole on her left. Her fingers will be small. She’ll only have four fingers on one hand. I’ll love it. I’ll want to cradle the stump in my palm and ask about the tractor accident. Will it be because of her eyes than can only see straight forward? Or because she wasn’t paying attention and looking at the weeds with yellow, withered faces?
She’ll be holding one pole. Five other poles will be placed haphazardly around the train. All with dirt in the cracks and scratches. All cold and metal. All like maps of past events. A map of fights and colliding suitcases and underground trains controlled by robots.
The girl will close her eyes and I’ll see how her eyelashes curl and twist like spider webs onto her cheeks. They’ll be fake, obviously, but I’ll want to touch them. I’ll want to act childish and knit my fingers behind my back and ask if she wants to be friends.
But she’ll be a stranger on the Bart and soon I’ll be late for my flight.
She’ll tap her shoe in a diagonal rhythm. The cord will wiggle and bounce against her chest like a white snake. Six knots will be pretzeled into it and because I’m a mother hooked onto a fishing line, I’ll want to take and unknot it.
Jazz will drift from her earbuds. It’ll be the type of music that’s whitewashed by lyrics. The type where the male singer moves his voice up and down the spectrum and sings of rainbows in the shower. I’ll hate it, for sure. But I’ll also love it. And the way the girl’s hips will sway while her boarding pass flaps in between her fingers.
In another world, I’ll know that she’d offer me an earbud and we’d listen together. But that would take minutes and I’ll only be watching from a distance while time fades into the distance like an escalator. A stairway to heaven.
There will be exactly seven ads in the train. One for Geico car insurance, with smiling actors and a green gecko. The second for a dating app, like hell anyone will try that. Third for Mattress Firm, the fourth for a suitcase company. The fifth is McDonald’s with bright colors to catch your eye, and the sixth for men’s coats. The seventh is for a makeup company with the slogan ‘Look how you feel.’
Does that mean I should look gray and lost and tied to tracks? Or free with face-paint of butterfly wings like the stuff we used to get at kindergarten birthday parties?
Suddenly, the girl will grab my wrist. Not too hard. Eight of her nails will dig into my skin. The last one will have ripped off one way or another.
It’ll only last a moment. Our breaths will mix like chicken soup. She’ll lock her hand behind my back and press her lips against my cheek. I’ll almost swallow the mint I’ll have in my mouth. Alarm bells will go off in my head. I’ll be able to remember the clocks and their ticking, vaguely, like the chugs of an old train. It’ll be the new year. And I won’t feel different at all.
This will be a problem. I’ll have snuck away from my hairy husband in bed and our three red-nosed children, just to stand on a train and get kissed by a stranger and feel the same. I’ll look at the girl and she’ll avoid my gaze. She’ll be Utah and I’ll be Minnesota, miles away and cold.
There will be nine ways to continue but only a few will float by at the time. The first one being to go and disappear. The second one being to return to my family. And the third one being—nothing. Something I won’t be able to think off.
Fairytales are something I read in kindergarten. I’ll feel like I’m living it, having the female character choose to be free and wild or return back to her children who don’t love her in a house that smells of garbage.
It’ll be a terrible metaphor. A common one. I’ll be caught in it, though. The train being life, speeding up and me either grasping a ride or stumbling into the past. I won’t want to be controlled by it yet I will be. Everyone is.
Even the girl who avoids my eyes and listens to jazz like the world can fall apart at her fingers. So I crack the mint in my mouth into ten tiny pieces. I’ll gulp nine into the stone-shaped lump in my throat and spit one out into my palm.
It’ll get forced into a piece of gum and barely stand out. But I’ll have made my mark. The gum won’t be sticky anymore and I won’t be afraid of its messages with bite marks. Or beautiful, cussing graffiti that’ll wrap the Bart in a sense of home.
Before the doors close, I’ll sprint out, dragging my suitcase behind me, and hop onto another train that looks exactly the same.
Utah will be watching, one earbud dripping onto her shoulder, wondering how someone so tortured could escape something we learned as early as kindergarten.
You must sign up or log in to submit a comment.
179 comments
Unedited. So bad. But hey, I did the challenge, Ru. :) Happy New Year!
Reply
I feel this could have been formatted differently but he probably just copied and pasted from word which would have looked very differently on the page he copied it from.
Reply
Reading this story, I'm reminded of how I almost always feel about the films that win Best Picture at the Academy Awards: I can tell your story is objectively good and it just feels like it fits whatever invisible metric the unseen judges use to determine winners, but it's not the type of thing I would normally choose to read nor did I understand it once I did. Still, what do I know? I purposely write easily digestible genre fiction. :) Congratulations my friend! Good job.
Reply
I thought it was just me who didn't understand. What do I know? But I really liked the writing style. And again how people are able to describe things with so much depth. I stan.
Reply
I couldn't agree more.
Reply
I'm intrigued by the way this is written in future tense. I feel like the reason why is part of the story, and I'm trying to figure it out. I thought of you this week while I was writing, about having moments where I let go of making words make sense and just let them be to do their thing. And yes, Utah and Minnesota and the distance between them made me suck my breath in.
Reply
I thought of you this week, also, because I had read your story but was too lazy to comment. I thought of how your stories made perfect sense in a sad way and I loved it. Then I decided to comment. :) Thank you.
Reply
Oh wow. I love how you don't go the traditional route and mark it out plainly: One, Two, Three... It makes for a much more impactful story. Love the names and the descriptions of the missing finger and the earbuds. I didn't catch any typos, which is step one. What was the challenge Ru gave you?
Reply
Thank you! Ru gave Abigail and me a challenge to start our stories’ titles with the letter K. She was writing one and didn’t post but Abigail and I have one. :)
Reply
Wait, now the story's down. I saw it earlier! "Kites."
Reply
What? I don't think Ru posted hers...
Reply
Oh, so fun. I've read Abigail's and I'll read Ru's soon, just saw the notification.
Reply
Yay!
Reply
I caught one. They wrote 'than' instead of 'that' in the section about the tractor accident... Will it be because of her eyes *than* can only see straight forward?
Reply
Oh, good catch :).
Reply
Great win Scout!! Keep it up! :)
Reply
Congratulations! I knew it! Grinning so hard :)
Reply
Thank you, my soulmate. Rosebuds through chain-link fences, always. :)
Reply
Honestly, you need no edits. It is such a beautiful piece you have written. So simple yet so detailed. Amazing job, I loved it a lot. Hope you and your dog (such a cute one by the way!!!) had a Happy New Year! :)
Reply
Aw, thanks!
Reply
Your welcome! :)
Reply
OMG SCOUT YOU WON!!! Ahhhh wow congrats sis!!!!! I feel like the winners are always these older, prestigious authors so when I saw the winner was A FRIEND OF MINE I was like yesssss!! Two shortlists and one win, you go girl! Lol. Seriously though, CONGOOOOOOOO
Reply
happy birthday, Aerin! What are you turning?
Reply
I could not be happier even if I had won this. Deserved win!
Reply
All credited to my dog, of course. ;)
Reply
Because of course!
Reply
I stole her name and picture so why not?
Reply
HOLY DAMN THIS IS A GOOD STORY EVERYONE UPVOTE ME SO HE CAN SEE PLEASE
Reply
For an unedited AND a winner, this was pretty good. ;) Lovely work with the descriptions. I was curious about how this was going to turn out, but present tense in a story sounds new and intriguing. Congrats on the medal, definitely deserved it.
Reply
Omg omg omg! You won? Yassss. I'm sorry for being so late, but hey, it's okay. Isn't it? You actually won! I'm so, so happy, Scout!
Reply
Haha! All good.
Reply
Hi Scout! Seems like this story is a sad reflection on these days, where thoughts of a kinder time - kinder-garten - provide solace as the sad 2020 morphs into a sad 2021. I like this line: "My kids will grow up in four different states and they’ll know that she is what Utah would look like." Very clever. If you named the train Bart, I wonder if you are referring to BART, the Bay Area transit. I bet there are a 1000 ways to interpret this story- there almost always are for one of yours 🧡 Thanks for making me think today. Congratulations on...
Reply
Thank you so much, Kelsey! And yes, I was referring to BART. Because I know you live in/near San Francisco, right? It's so nice to hear from you. How are you?
Reply
Hi Scout, Yes I live 25 miles south of San Francisco. I am fine, thanks for asking. Busy, but healthy, for which I'm very grateful. Keep writing- you know you love it (And we do, too) 😊 All the best, Kelsey
Reply
That's nice, do you visit the city often? So glad to hear you're healthy. I hope not too busy to write a story...? Please? I do love it. :) Writing.
Reply
Ha! I haven't been to San Francisco in years. Sorry to say. Back in the 60s and 70s I used to go there often with friends and family. Sadly, SF has suffered the fate of many cities. Writing... I have not given up. I keep a running list of story ideas and one-liners that come to me. Slowly working on fruition 😁 Writers supporting each other is a precious thing!
Reply
Indeed. I can’t wait until this story comes to life. I’m sorry you haven’t been to the city recently. I love it and I plan to go soon.
Reply
Hello @Scout Tahoe, Nice story, well done for winning... given it a like. Please could you give me some feedback on: https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/contests/74/submissions/47395/ Thanks
Reply
Congrats!
Reply
Thanks! I’m so grateful for your support.
Reply
Your work really inspired me :) Congrats on the win!!
Reply
It's very interesting, this was definitely a brave choice, I wasn't really pulled into the story.
Reply
And congratulations! Obviously there's something to the Scout Tahoesque style.
Reply
And obviously there’s double the amount to the A.dot Ramesque style. :)
Reply
Scout, this is wonderful as it is. There's just something so beautiful in a traumatizing fashion — maybe it's the way you've shown us the ticking clock, maybe it's the way how Minnesota and Utah are so far away, maybe it's the way you've converted such a clichéd metaphor to a profound tale, or maybe it's the kindergarten lessons. Whatever the case, it certainly is quite charming. As for the edits: "...because of her eyes than can only see..." --> that instead of than. "...yet I will be. Everyone is. ..." --> will instead of is.
Reply
Ah, shoot. The contest ended yesterday and I cannot edit. But thank you so much. You have offered so much helpful advice on my stories and I was wondering if I could do the same for you...? Just give me a title and I'll try to read. :)
Reply
Oh, but I think you can edit your story until it gets approved, even if the contest has ended. In case you're still unable to, it's alright, these were really minor typos anyways ;) That's really kind of you! In case you're willing, my latest story, "Engraved in hearts" would be my pick. However, you don't have to feel obliged; I just really love reading your stories. :)
Reply
Aw, thanks! But I want to return the favor, so I will. And let me know if you post any this week.
Reply
Haha, okay then! I'm not sure about this week; I'm kind of tied up. But if I do, I'll let you know :)
Reply
Alright... Can't wait.
Reply
love the future tense on this! and the line ‘Everyone is Italian' is hilarious. congrats!
Reply
I'm Italian, you're Italian. Thank you!
Reply