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The Train Station
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The Train Station |
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fractal007 Senior Member
since 2000-06-01
Posts 1958 |
Ours is the eight o'clock train to Beerville. My sister Isabella is excited about going back to the small town where we were born, but it feels oddly ironic that we're taking a train to get there. Nevertheless, here we are, sitting on a bench near the tracks at the great big Prince George Train Station. But I'm not telling you the whole truth. The town isn't really called Beerville, but it's certainly done a good job earning that name for itself. Rather, Fern Pond is a quaint little town, situated deep in the heart of British Columbia's beautiful lakes district. I'm pretty sure that's what the tourist brochures say. The reality is slightly less picturesque. Fern Pond is a small town where the kids all want to get high and get out and move on to the city, wherever that might be. There's a Seven Eleven, a restaurant called Rosie's, a local school that looks like an old factory, and not much else. In Fern Pond you're either very rich or very drunk. Anyway, I guess I should get on with telling you about all this. Isabella and I have been sitting on this stupid bench for the last hour. We've seen all sorts of stuff. Some short British man with a briefcase and a giant suitcase sat beside us for a while. He seemed nice enough, but I don't think he'd ever heard of deodorant. I never knew such a stench could come from such a finely clad gentleman. I was thinking about asking him what swamp he'd come out of, but he left before I could say anything. Maybe he realised I was picking up his scent and that he couldn't stand the embarrassment he was so obviously feeling. “James Bond!” Isabella whispered to me as the man got up to leave. “Look! He's even got the black suit and the slick, black, hair. And he's British!” I waited for the man to walk away and then turned to Isabella, saying, “He could be. I wonder if he's coming along with us to check out Beerville.” “Don't call it that!” Isabella shot back, tears coming to her eyes. Mom always got mad at me when I called Fern Pond by its other name, especially in front of Isabella. She always said Isabella was too young to understand why we left the place. She's eleven, so she would have been about a year old when we left. I was seven and I can remember the whole thing. All Isabella has are those dumb photo albums full of pictures of her two smiling parents. It's amazing how easily you can lie to someone with pictures. Fern Pond is a peaceful place, with beautiful mountains covered in trees. Everyone lives in lovely little log cabins, blissfully making do with the bare essentials of life. Isabella never thinks of Fern Pond in any other way. Boy is she in for a disappointment! She already took Mom's death pretty hard. I don't blame her. It hit me hard too. Mom was being her overprotective single mother self that morning, getting me off to school and making sure the baby sitter came to take care of Isabella. That night her mangled, lifeless body was found on the train tracks in the middle of Prince George. Now, three months later, we're being sent straight back to the town we came from, to live with our Dad. I guess social services figures we'll be better off that way. Maybe they're right. Dad's phoned us five times since he was notified, telling us how excited he is to see us. “Your mother never let me talk to you much,” he said in one conversation, “so we've got a lot of catching up to do!” Isabella's taking it all pretty hard, but she still believes that she's going to live in a paradise. Every time I try to tell her different she gets mad, saying that Mom, if she were here, would yell at me for saying such things. The only things I remember about Fern Pond are my Dad and all the drinking. I used to know kids that were going through the same things I was going through. They told me about the screaming and the smashing. My Dad shattered one of my Mom's favourite wind chimes. She'd gotten that thing from her mother. The sound of the dismembered pieces shooting across the floor and the shouting and screaming of the two combatants are as vivid to me now as they were ten years ago. The other kids were kind of impressed when I told them that story, I guess. Sometimes, at school during lunch, we'd swap 'Mommy and Daddy stories.' I used to envy the teenagers. They could go out drinking and deal with Mommy and daddy that way. We couldn't. We weren't old enough to hang with the real guys. We were on the front lines and all we had was each other. I wish I could believe the pictures in the photo albums. I wish I could tell myself that I'm going to paradise. Deep down, I wish we could all live in one of those wonderful log cabins, together again and without a care in the world. Sometimes I even fantasize about it. I imagine Mom, Dad, Isabella, and I all living in some cabin out in the woods somewhere, divorced completely from Beerville and from the past. There's a lush garden in front of our cabin, filled with all sorts of things, from orchids to tulips. I weed the garden – we all do – and everything is cleansed of imperfections. My sister nudges me. “Come on, Harland,” she says, “it's here!” I watch the VIA train slow to a stop before us. Clumps of people move toward it as Isabella and I stand up, preparing to take our own place among the multitude. I'm scared. Walking toward the train I notice the short British man sitting on a bench closer to the tracks. He's staring at me with a pensive look on his face. He picks up his smelly self, his briefcase, and his giant suitcase and follows us onto the train. It looks like I was right about one thing. 2+2=5 for sufficiently large values of 2 |
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Sunshine
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-25
Posts 63354Listening to every heart |
This will continue, yes? Please? Because you do have my interest. Very much so. |
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click1 Member
since 2003-03-25
Posts 152usa |
Yes,"beerville"...only the liars and us deniers call it by the "map" name... good story..more? thanx. Click |
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MsSouthernOrchid Member
since 2003-07-12
Posts 192 |
I really got involved in this story. I, like the others, hope for more. Enjoyed it. |
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Dusk Treader
Moderator
Senior Member
since 1999-06-18
Posts 1187St. Paul, MN |
As I always find with your prose, this is an enjoyable read. A small glimpse into the mind of this young man and his feelings on returning to what memories tell him was a hard place to be. I liked the length of this exactly as it was. Durinng the relatively short length of this piece a good feeling for the main character was established. The breath of life was there and I applaud you on that. I also really like that last line as it really allows the reader to decide for themselves how this piece ended. It's almost a line of hope, but it's still ringing with desperation. Excellent vignette. I'll be waiting for the next story from you. "Knowledge is far superior to Belief as Belief is the way of the uniformed." - Scott Cunningham |
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rad802 Member
since 2008-04-19
Posts 279KY U.S.A. |
nice read thank you |
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serenity Junior Member
since 2011-01-30
Posts 13Queensland, Australia. |
I really got caught up in this story it was so interesting. And I certainly can identify with it. Thanks for the opportunity to read it. |
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