The Way Home

Even though the weatherman proclaimed it was to be a gorgeous, sunny day, the sky in the city was always a perpetual grey. This didn’t particularly surprise Kat - the sky was always inky from the constant factory smoke. The skyscrapers invaded the sky, made it less visible. It was constantly rainy and wet. The streets were full of worn garbage and sludge on the worst of the rainy days. People seldom interacted - most were constantly moving from point A to point B. By day, it was mostly office workers, city workers, and factory workers. By night, it was the seedy underbelly: sex workers, drug lords, and mob bosses.

The train was packed, door-to-door, as per usual. Ever since cars were banned ten years ago due to their troublesome pollution, Kat found it oddly ironic that suddenly everyone was on equal footing when it came to heavy reliance on public transit. She was lucky to have a seat, but she was smushed between an overweight office worker sloppily eating something very smelly on her left and someone dozing off to sleep on her right. Most of the time their head collided with Kat’s shoulder, which earned a twinge of annoyance from Kat. She was in her best clothes, a woven basket on her lap and a face mask covering the entire bottom half of her face. Due to overpopulation, illness was rampant. Kat had used up a majority of her sick days, so the mask was mandatory in her eyes. She couldn’t afford to lose her job at the factory. Then she’d never afford leaving this seedy place and going to the school of her dreams.

This was the longest serving train, and it showed. The train shuddered and creaked every time it pulled out of the station, leaving the big city. It was also the only line that went from the city to what was beyond its walls. Kat wanted desperately to doze off, but the overheating and overcrowding did not allow that for her. Instead, she tapped on the lid of her basket. When it moved, just slightly, she chuckled, whispered, “Not yet. Soon.”

She sighed, pressed her head to the wall and looked up. Beyond a very tall businessman who was checking his watch, Kat curiously eyed the billboard ads that lined the walls above the windows.

”Get Vegan Cola Today!” One proudly boasted. Kat grimaced at that one. It tasted like eating a mouthful of grass.

Another was a teaser for a new movie opening at the cinemas. “One Man Can Change Everything.” The tag line proclaimed, showing a picture of Giovanni Pashkevich, the hottest new action superstar. His muscles were altered in the photo to look alarmingly large. Kat prayed he wasn’t utilizing less-than-savory methods to maintain his buff physique.

The next teaser was of Countryside Lemonade. Kat fondly smiled at that one. It looked old, but it was still used in the commercials. A photo of the countryside, and a little brunette girl in a plaid dress holding a pitcher of the beverage. “Our lemonade is the best in the world,” it said. Kat sighed, found herself finally beginning to doze off.

“Next stop, Hawk City Wall! Hawk City Wall, next stop!” The conductor announced over a crackly loudspeaker. Kat purposely chose to remain awake now, and as soon as the train pulled into the Hawk City Wall station, she was relieved to find virtually everyone get off the train. It was a rush of people, pushing and shoving out of the train. When the last of the crowd left, the doors slowly closed. There were traces of bright sun peeking through the grey, and Kat lifted her arm to feel its warmth through the window. She was now the only one seated in her corner. In the entire car, only two other passengers remained: an elderly woman sewing while humming a tune to herself, and the other a middle-aged man in a corduroy suit and a felt hat reading a newspaper.

“Next stop, Country Isle!”

And the train was beyond the wall. The further it went, the sky dissolved from grey to the most vivid blue, and the sun grew stronger and stronger. Kat kept her arm up whenever she could, soaking up the sun. The train still pushed on through the tracks, despite them being flooded. Whatever was left of a large strip of land was now a nub of an island, with a single house standing. The train stopped here, proclaiming, “This is Country Isle!”

The middle-aged man got off here, folding the paper underneath his arm and calmly walking out. Kat realized as she lifted her arm to the sun again just how pale she had become. She was almost translucent. She needed to spend her weekends beyond the wall. The last thing she needed was to scare people into thinking she was a ghost.

The train went on for another hour, not stopping once until it finally hit “Peachy Pear Summit,” where the elderly woman had put away her sewing project and left Kat the sole traveler on the train.

“Last stop, Lemonade Lane! Last stop, Lemonade Lane!”

Kat sighed in relief, getting up from her seat with basket in tow. She approached the window, opened the lid just a tad, “Look,” she whispered, “this is what the world is supposed to look like. Isn’t it beautiful? You’ll be so happy here. I promise you.”

The train kept moving for another three hours. The sun remained glorious in the sky, almost like a beacon. Kat soaked up whatever sun she could get, the flooded tracks waning into dry land, dusty roads blooming into greener grasses, and fearsome branches growing flowers and massive trees. By the time the train turned, the sun was beginning to set, giving the sky a vermilion glow. There was now a tunnel of trees, flower petals hitting the windows. Kat had to gently tap the basket a few times, whispering, “Hush now. We’re almost there.”

By the time the conductor pulled into the last stop, proclaiming, “Lemonade Lane, Lemonade Lane, last stop!”, it was night, but the grass was still green, and Kat left the train to the first house beyond the trees, lined with a picket fence and blueberry bushes. The lights were on, and warm, and as soon as the train began to move in the opposite direction, the front door opened.

”Kat!” it was a brunette woman, a little older, her hair beginning to grey. She was plump, had oven mitts and an apron on. Kat stopped at the gate, waved at the woman, “Hi, Aunt Harry!”

She placed the basket down, finally opened the lid. In a burst of energy, a small black puppy yipped happily, finally relieved to be out. It scurried to Aunt Harry, who cooed and immediately bent down to pick it up, laughing.

“Happy birthday, Aunt Harry!” Kat proclaimed.