Roses at the Station

Suitcase in hand you head to the station, for the fifth time this week. You were just used to it on the third and fourth times, but now you’re back to being sick of it. Just glad you’ll have a few days of soon. The smooth black strap feels like richness in your hand, reminds you of your fathers briefcase you would play with as a child. You didn’t know what it was or what it meant to have one, but you knew that it would be good if you had one when you were older. It feels good that you have one now, but you don’t think that your father had his for the same reason and it makes you feel sad. 

It’s so good that they finally out some flowers around here again. It’s been so long since there was roses in full bloom like that. Roses always made you feel a bit nicer, they’re something real and nobody can get mad at a rose or say it isn’t beautiful. So endearing and tempting, yeah there’s the full infantry hiding underneath the coloured clouds of petals, but that’s just because they’re strong. If anything it makes them better. Makes you question if they’re really nice or not. 

Getting in the empty carriage, you take a seat at the far end and decide to use this time to focus on your writing. It’s very hard though. Like drawing blood from a stone. You were always told to write what I know. But you don’t know anything worth anything really. You were smart enough to go to university, but only barely passed. You had enough money to always have a good house, but not enough that you didn’t have to work all of the time and never had anything exciting happen to you. The only reason you’re in this job is because you wanted the opportunity to see the world and different times a bit, hoping it could offer a shot of inspiration. It didn’t. You’re still struggling, but struggling on, and back and sometimes to the side. A bleeding stone. Maybe that’s a good image. You go to write it down, but you have your work notes out, so read them instead. 

This is a very simple project this time, but it’s taking you back a long time. It’s going to be rough on the head. Think you’ll need to slow down after this one take a bit of a break. It is about a statue erected in 2022 in America. You need to make sure it never goes up. The statue is of one Dolly Parton, famous singer, statue erected in her honour, recently discovered she was a prolific supporter of radical and invalid human rights. You don’t know what that means or what’s wrong about it, but you rarely do know these things. Better to just do it, not ask questions. You’re content that someone else has figured out its wrong and everyone will appreciate it if it keeps the peace you’re sure of that much. And anyway it’s not like you have any agenda or motive in this, you’re just a struggling writer who took a square job to save a bit of money and try and write some. You’re way better off just getting it down before it was ever up. Don’t know if there was any trouble over this statue yet, but better just getting rid of it before there is trouble. 

Through the window in the door just ahead of you, you see the conductor doing whatever calibrations he needs to suit up the journey. You see there’s one other person in the carriage behind you, but doubt they’re going very far back at all. Probably just a few months. Trying to make the one that got away stay. You wonder what that’s like. You’ve never been in love, not at this point anyway. Maybe when you retire. But for the time being you just need to stay focused on your work and writing. 

Oh the writing! You finally get it out. 

The conductor interrupts you just as you are about to put pen to paper. They take your ticket.

Woah, haven’t seen someone going back this far in a while now. You look back at person who handed you the ticket and you can see from their loose stitching along the seam they don’t have money. So either they’ve saved up everything they have, maybe stole anything other people had, to make a last chance dash back to start over, or they’ve a job in time and their company is paying for the trip. Handing back the stub you momentarily catch a glimpse into their deep set, purple ringed eye. An emptiness in their pupil which gives them away. You want to stop looking but the black holes seem so barren and bleak that they feel like a hoover sucking you in and you can’t look away. They’re so shiny, like crystals, but you can’t see yourself reflected in them. It’s disturbing. They didn’t seem to blink either. You don’t know how long they’ve been on you but you feel like it’s been long enough that they should’ve blinked. You get further, further sucked in

They knocked over a bottle of ink they had sitting out. 

They finally stopping looking in your eyes and hand you your now punched ticket back. But not before the idiot knocked over your bottle of ink, slicking and sogging your only story in jet black. Filling the white space around your letters it grows and grows, killing your hard work, ideas, thoughts. You think about standing up and shouting at the conductor as they walk away. Saying something like “its ignorance like that that causes problems that I have to go and fix”. And the carriage would be full of people and they’d clap for you. You think about this, as you put the ruined story into an old bin to your right, and go back to your assignment notes.

Haven’t had to take down a statue in a while. Hope you can still handle it. But shit it took you a long time to get them two pages done. Anyway just finish this job, sure you’ll be able to do it again later on. Show your badge - that works nearly every time. Show your badge to who? To the executioner. No wait the executioner’s from the story. Really thought that story was good though. What was it about again? You can’t remember clearly. Journey must’ve started. 

You put your assignment notes away. Nearly there. Your head feels like its pulsing on the inside, as if what’s inside is too big and is trying to burst out. You want to release the pressure through your ear or something, make the pain go away. You take a pill to try and keep the pain at bay until you get the job done.

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Thank god that’s done. You feel elated but you don’t look it. You were right about this job, really took it out of you. Have a few days break now. You’ll do loads of writing this time. You’ll just write and write and write and left and write and wrong. Your trousers slip down slightly. Lucky you have the spare belt in your work suitcase, thinking this would make you lose even more weight. You feel your hip bone as you lace the leather belt through the few remaining belt loops on the trousers. It feels sharp; skin feels like it could be ripped. You need to take your supplements ASAP. 

What will I write about this time? Hard to think of anything. Thinks there’s something missing from the station, to brighten the place up a bit. Make everybody feel a bit nicer, talk a bit nicer. You think roses could do that maybe.