Anna stepped back from the mirror. Slender and well kept, she looked pretty good for a woman pushing forty. She thought so anyway. Her husband Frank didn’t seem to notice one way or the other, even though she’d tried to get him to—oh yes—she had. Several years ago, she’d gotten down to an anorexic size two. God, what’s wrong with me? She sighed, turning away from the mirror. She was a woman of extremes; no matter what, she went ‘balls to the walls’.
Frank was outside mowing the lawn. The drone of a motor penetrated the double paned windows; the sound was alien to her. She looked out the master bathroom window. She was up high; below was a huge lawn of crème de menthe green that stretched from the back of the house to the wall of trees that bordered their property. The lawn was Frank’s pride and joy. He looked ridiculous down there, like an insect buzzing around a light. She watched his circles get tighter then stepped away from the window. He’ll be outside for a while. She slipped her fingers into her panties and rubbed; an image of Frank buzzing around came to mind—she pushed it away—concentrating. Her climax was bittersweet. Too bad Frank doesn’t enjoy riding me as much as that lawnmower.
She looked around the room. The wallpaper looked fuzzy. Come to think of it, everything did. It was as if a milky haze had dulled her perspective, like a corona around a bright light. She laughed softly, more like a corona of dog shit; her perception had become ‘hinky’, as if she were floating around in a cottony bubble, and that made her think of her older brother. She reeled her mind back to the present and looked out the window framing a dazzling shock of green leaves; a breeze rippled through the treetops; dapples of shadow and light danced in the air before slowly sighing to a stop.
She heard the kitchen door open and shut.
Frank was done mowing. She headed towards the stairway; he’d be hungry and would want something to eat. His voice floated up from below, “What do we got to eat?”
She hurried to the kitchen. “We’ve got pork chops or chicken leftovers or I can make you something if you want.”
Frank put his hands on his hips, looking as if he were in deep thought. “Nah, heat me up some of them chops, and gravy too.”
He plopped in front of the TV and watched football, shoveling food into his mouth in between yelling at the referee for penalizing his team. Anna sat nearby reading a magazine while she ate. The sound was blaring and she couldn’t stand the noise. She put the dishes away then said, “I’m going for a ride.”
He waved her off without taking his eyes off the game. She hurried outside and loaded her bicycle into Frank’s truck, heading for a nearby bike trail.
The Trail
Anna unloaded her bike, drank in the canopy of green around her then took off down the trail. She ticked away the miles, breathing deeply, smelling the land and the loam, basking in the sheer green of it all. She passed ancient rock walls covered in vines; she could see the layers of rock, limestone, sandstone, and quartz; ageless, passing ‘time out of mind’ and into a ‘when’ where man didn’t even exist—She saw these things and for a moment, felt a part of them, as if she’d stepped back in time, into ‘long ago.’ She leaned forward over the bike’s handlebars, pedaling faster, propelling herself along the shadowed path, eating up the miles the way a stopwatch eats up the minutes, pushing farther away from her grievances with Frank.
She was nearing one of her favorite places along the trail and slowed.
There was a carpet of yellow Forget me Not’s sandwiched between the trail and a giant wall of stone that soared into the treetops. She got off of her bike and walked around the bluff’s edge, gazing up at the rocks coated with moss and trailing vines; she inhaled the scent of the forest. The path forked to the right, declining abruptly into a shadowed tunnel of trees. She’d never noticed this part of the trail, and yet she’d stopped here countless times.
Anna looked towards her bicycle and surveyed the area, confused, perhaps she’d gone further along the trail than she’d realized. A sign next to the path indicated she was 13 miles from the trailhead. This was her customary stopping point, the mile marker left little doubt but it didn’t seem right. The tree tunnel was musty and damp, like autumn rain. The soil grew rocky, the trees falling away from the path in a sheer drop; the forest valley lay far below whispering with shadows. She walked along the cliff’s edge. At the far end of the rock shelf, the path resumed, plunging in a spill of boulders and tree roots. She peered down the natural stairway: tendrils of fog curled around its base; a fine mist had settled into the valley below. Where’s the fog coming from? She worked her way carefully down the crude stairs. The valley was walled in on three sides by bluffs. The rock wall to her right rose a full 30 feet above her. Skeletal trees struggled from its ledges. A delicate green moss covered the cliffs; shimmering the air, as if these ancient stone fortresses were alive and breathing. She felt like a child discovering a secret garden in a Fairy Tale.
A loon’s forlorn cry echoed through the forest. Its eerie call was unsettling.
Anna thought of her older brother; he’d chased the monsters away when she was a child. Mark kept the fear at bay, appointing himself as her guardian angel. He’d even kept an eye on her until she’d graduated from college. They’d been kids then; now things were different.
The loon cried again. Its eerie song rose and fell in a haunting volley between the canyon walls.
Anna looked up at the canyon’s rim, but there was no sign of the bird.
Further down the path was a glade of trees; they formed a small circle among the boulders. Ancient vines hung from the trees, like the jungle. She entered the glade. The mist had formed a caul at the base of the trees. It was otherworldly—Poe’s version of heaven. A place where Christians might exile sinners—fuck religion—Her parents had hidden behind the church’s doctrines in the name of humility and avoided a family legacy they were afraid to face. You couldn’t change the truth no matter where you came from. She’d grown up feeling something was wrong. Her parents had tried to bury that legacy, but it had always been present, like a boil filled with puss. The poison leached out a bit at a time; it couldn’t be avoided. Her brother had known; a painful awareness had settled into his eyes during his teen years and had intensified when he was in his twenties. The poisonings had been too much to handle; he’d been overcome, in and out of mental institutions ever since.
More fog rolled in, ringing the glade in a misty veil.
The loon cried again and was answered by a screeching wail that was almost human, like the cry of an infant or small child. Anna remembered being three or four years old, when she’d been awakened after midnight by a keening wail. The sound had intensified in volume then faded into a pitiful moan, repeating over again. It wasn’t the sound that had disturbed her, but the quality of the cries; if she’d known the word, she would have said the sound was feral; dangerous. She had felt like she was sinking, her belly empty and sick; those moans sounded human and worst of all, they brought her face to face with the secret that her parents were determined to bury, the thing they refused to talk about.
Anna didn’t understand why her parents were so afraid, but she did know that whatever ‘it’ was, it held great power. Those moans had been worse than her fear of the dark that summer evening, because they personified a savage need, an animalistic urge that was out of control.
The birds called back and forth in an echoing question and answer game. She hurried back to the trail; it was time to blow this joint and go back. She climbed several steps, ‘hightailing it’, as her Dad would have said.
The fog was much thicker, making it difficult for her to negotiate the steep path. She stumbled and fell, slamming her knee against a stump. She looked at the damage. There was a rip in her pants, a jagged little hole rimmed with blood.
A metallic whooshing sound cut overhead; it was like an old pair of scissors opening and closing. What the fuck?
She dismissed it. You didn’t hear that sort of thing in the woods. She climbed several more steps, wondering why the rim of the cliff didn’t seem closer then deciding that the fog had distorted her view. An ear splitting mechanical squeal echoed through the canyon, like a madman’s laughter. She felt its vibration before she heard it. Must be a tremor she thought, before the sound of screaming steel slammed into her, sending her running back down the Cliffside, looking for cover. The bizarre squealing stopped as abruptly as it had started. A worm of panic settled into her stomach. It was the same fluttering panic she’d felt the day she discovered Frank was cheating on her. She had been offered a partnership in the firm and had come home early to celebrate. After icing down a bottle of Champaign, she’d headed towards the bedroom and had heard Frank cry out. She’d yanked the door open, thinking he was hurt. Why are the bedcovers on the floor? Was that someone clapping?
Frank stood at the edge of the bed, naked, with his back to Anna, thrusting his hips to a juicy tune of [pop slap] pop slap pop.
Oh my God.
Her thoughts were gibberish. A woman’s laughter penetrated her confusion and at once, she understood two things. Her husband was having an affair and the other woman was her sister.
Anna stepped back, her hand pressed across her lips to stifle a moan. Frank turned around and said, “Hey Sugar, come join us.”
The animation disappeared from his face when he saw Anna.
Anna’s sister was on the bed. Frank looked incredulous, as if he were surprised to find her there. He glanced down at his crotch, eyes widening, as if his family jewels had escaped. What followed was total confusion. Anna’s sister jumped up from the bed, taking the blanket with her; the words tumbling out of her mouth were absurd—something along the lines of, “This isn’t what it looks like.”
Anna barely registered the comment; it was as if her mind had gone into convulsions. She took a step backwards to flee, the voices in her head were screaming, “No no, no…”
Her voice was waging a war inside her head, arguing against what her eyes told her must be true. The bathroom door opened and a young woman with blonde hair emerged, “Are you and Sherri ready for desert?”
Anna looked at the woman with disgust, then at her husband. She’d trusted him and he’d betrayed her. Her eyes ticked over him and onto her sister Sherri, then returned to the woman who’d just exited the bathroom. The scene was like Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew crossed with a Salvador Dali nude painting. A vice like grip of anxiety tightened in her mind; it was a regular family reunion. The blonde woman was her cousin. Anna turned and fled.
A sharp metallic sound sliced through the air and brought Anna back to the present. She looked up into the treetops and didn’t see anything unusual, but whatever it was had ruffled her hair. She shivered; it had sounded like a saw blade or knives scraping steel; if it’d been an inch closer, it would have scalped her. She checked the top of her head, okay, I’m not bleeding. The loon’s conversation had tapered off and an unnatural quiet tethered the air. The mist was thick. She felt walled in, claustrophobic. Water droplets fell from above, slap tapping against the leaves; the fog was condensing into rain. Well good then, soon I’ll be able to see. Something whooshed overhead, stirring leaves up off of the forest floor, disturbing the Loon. The powerful bird took to the air, screaming, and the path directly in front of Anna became a blur of feathers and fear. She threw her hands up and let out a strangled yelp before tumbling backwards. She gasped for air and looked up, following the loon’s awkward trajectory. The bird wheeled, righting itself. It vanished from her line of sight. The fog had lifted. A steady drizzle had taken its place. She sat up, nursing her bruises, then got to her feet. Now that the fog had dissipated, she was able to get her bearings. She had descended further than she had realized and was only a few steps from the forest floor. She really ought to head back but she was curious.
*
At the base of the natural staircase was a bed of ferns. New shoots curled into lime green pinwheels, as delicate and fine as the summer days Anna had spent as a child. She was surprised to find that the path was clear, as if someone had taken great pains to keep it open; it ran along the base of the cliffs. She walked next to the bluff’s edge gazing upward, marveling at the layers of rock that catapulted some 50 feet into the air. The rain fell faster and the shadows at the cliff’s base grew longer, filling the canyon floor with shades of darkness. Up above, the sun penetrated the mist at the canyon’s rim; weary rays of light wrapped around the trees imprisoned there, framing the treetops that strained over its edge. She looked up at the branches. The trees reached in a desperate wave, begging to be saved: Better hurry up and get out of here, looks like a storm is brewing. The forest was filled with the sound of scraping metal, train tracks, tracking time, where? The deafening squeal sounded again, ripping the daylight from the sky along with it. It became pitch black. She was trapped at the base of the canyon, like a bug in a bottle. She stood in the darkness, blinking, afraid to move until her eyes adjusted. The sounds of the rain washed forest were amplified; she could hear the drops tapping against the vegetation, rustling the leaves, layered with the chime like tones of raindrops hitting the rocks. It made her think of a bead necklace she’d had when she was a child; it was a cherished gift from her mother. The beads had spilled from around her neck onto the wooden floor in her mother’s bedroom; they’d jarred against each other, plinking. She had tried to catch them but ended up watching them roll away, feeling frustrated. She was sad about losing the beads, often wondering where they had ended up, still searching for them, even as long as a year later, she had asked after them, holding on to the idea that they might be found.
She had no idea how to find her way back; the shadows had muddled the trail. She stepped away from the shelter of the cliff and looked up. The canyon rim was only a vague suggestion; she thought she could see the top but she wasn’t certain. She stepped back into the shadow of the cliff. It provided some protection from the rain, and it looked as though she wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon. She hated being stranded and helpless—fuck—what bothered her most was being unable to escape. It didn’t matter where she was either. If she was at home without transportation, she felt trapped, and the feeling of panic didn’t leave until she got the car back. Even when she didn’t need to drive anywhere, she wanted the car tucked safely in the garage. It was her getaway car, in case she ever needed it.
On the far side of the canyon, something crashed through the bracken. A few moments later, she had the feeling she was being watched. She couldn’t see anything among the shadows and didn’t want to stay where she was either, so she walked along the bluff towards the area she thought the sound came from. The rhythmic tap of rain was joined by the steady [whoosh], whoosh, whoosh of displaced air; it was the sound of flight as a large bird sailed directly overhead and startled her. She ducked, raising her arms over her head and waiting several beats, making certain it was safe before she rose to a stand. Her eyes had adjusted; she was able to see shapes within the shadows, not that it helped much. She couldn’t tell anything important without getting close; she’d have to wear her ‘boogie shoes’ was what it amounted to, and if she had too, she’d run.
The Loon’s woeful cry fell from the darkness overhead, layering the canyon with sad questions, but this time, there was no answering call, only beseeching echoes. The rain had lessened to a sprinkle, which was a relief; her thin jacket had gotten soaked and although it was 70 degrees, it felt more like 50 degrees; the cold and damp had penetrated her skin and was seeping deeper. She stopped, staring to the side of the trail. There was something lying in a heap on the ground. At first, she thought it was a newspaper, but that didn’t make sense. As she got closer, she saw that it was a rag or piece of clothing. She bent over to pick it up. It was soaking wet from the rain, squishy between her fingertips. There wasn’t anything remarkable about it. The fabric was white cotton, like a t-shirt or a man’s briefs, but when she unfolded it, she saw that it wasn’t white after all but tie-dyed. A large swirl of bright red bloomed in its center; it looked like a child’s nightshirt. She was about to put it back when she felt a tingling sensation in the palm of her hand, as if something had bitten her or she’d pinched a nerve. She tossed the shirt onto the ground, feeling sick, as if touching it had soiled her. When it landed, she saw that it wasn’t a shirt at all. It was a blood soaked blanket crawling with beetles. She could hear them clicking against one another on its tattered remains. She took a step backwards; a low moan spilled from her throat as she backpedaled, her feet leaden and clumsy. She felt her gorge rising and swallowed hard. Her eyes settled on the faded cartoon characters that ran along the blanket’s edge; it was an infant’s receiving blanket. The cartoon figures stirred a feeling of recognition in her. She had a black, sinking feeling and feared the memory beneath. Her throat tightened with panic. She wanted to run, had to run. She ran back to her position by the cliff, pushing the memory away, blunting its edges. She was shaking, her heart a runaway train as she tried to catch her breath. She thought of her brother and the knowing look he’d carried; now she understood why he’d looked troubled, almost haunted. It was a look of horrified recognition he’d carried in his eyes, a look that had said, “This is too much to bear. Please help me, I’m dying, I can’t do this anymore.”
She shivered, goose pimples marching up and down her spine. She loved Mark; it was a fierce love born from protection—God how he’d suffered—the Loon wailed, as if it had answered her thoughts. She didn’t know what to do. Visibility was still bad, and if she tried to climb out of the canyon, she might fall and break her neck. She sat quietly, trying to work out a solution. The sound of crying came from the darkness, but it didn’t sound like the Loon, it sounded like a child. She could hear the brush rustling as someone or something approached. She stood rigid, on guard, ready to defend herself. The rustling was only a few yards away. A young boy appeared in front of her. He was whimpering, and as he approached, she saw he was limping, but even stranger, he didn’t seem the least bit surprised to find her out in the middle of the canyon. He looked to be around three or four years old. His face was filthy and streaked with tears, and he was wearing a torn pair of Winnie the Pooh pajamas. He swooned when he was within her reach and she caught him. She pulled him to her whispering softly, “It’s okay; I’ll take care of you, it’s okay.”
They sat with their backs pressed up against the cliff. The boy’s sobs quieted, but he refused to let go of her; his arms remained wrapped around her waist. In a few short minutes, she felt him relax and fall asleep.
When she was little, she had a pair of pajamas just like the boy was wearing, except hers had built-in feet; she had liked them because of Pooh but also because they’d kept her feet warm in the old drafty house where they lived. She looked at the boy beside her, figuring she’d stay where she was; let him sleep, it wasn’t like she had any place to go.
Towards Home
A short while later, the boy was gone—she must have fallen asleep—Anna jumped up, calling out, “Hey, where are you?”
She saw his shape materializing from the shadows; he came up the path towards her then sat down. He saw her worried expression and said, “I had to pee.”
Relieved, she sat next to him, her back against the cliff, figuring he’d go back to sleep. He slipped his arm underneath hers, grabbing her hand then said, “I like it here.”
She raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Wouldn’t you rather be home in your own bed with your parents nearby?”
In a tight voice, he said, “Nope. It’s better here.”
She was going to ask him why but changed her mind. The animation she’d seen in his eyes only moments ago had retreated. He grew quiet. She dozed, but was awakened by a vibrating buzz. She could feel the ground shaking and hear the rhythmic screaming of metal upon metal; it was the sound of a freight train, but there was no train in sight. The boy was awake with his hands pressed against his ears, looking towards the canyon’s rim. The skeletal trees at the rim were only the beginning: the view had changed into a blackened swatch of dead and dying land, stretching all the way down into the canyon, the trees stunted and barren, their branches poked from the hillside like dusty bones. She thought of war zones blighted by ‘Agent Orange’ and napalm. She stared at the denuded landscape, frozen. Death personified. The boy came to her and when he threaded his tiny hand into hers, she pulled back, having forgotten he was there. The boy persisted and eventually her hand closed around his. She stood frozen for a while, wondering who she was. The boy’s grasp tightened and he looked up at her, “I’m David.”
She relaxed and remembered, “My name is Anna.”
The sound of the train was receding, and as it grew distant, the vibration of the ground lessened, but even after the train’s passage, they still felt a low humming vibration through the soles of their shoes.
It started to rain harder, so they went back into the shelter of the cliff. David got there just ahead of her. In a shaky voice, he called out, “Someone’s been here.”
Raindrops full of dirt and sediment splattered off the face of the cliff, sailing down in an arc about a foot from the rock base then splattering against a small figure, its hair caked with mud. A naked baby doll lay face down in the water; one of its legs poked up at an unnatural angle and the other leg was missing. David poked at the doll with a stick, rolling it onto its back. A low moan escaped from Anna’s throat as the doll’s plastic pee-hole had been reamed open, its chest caved in with an adult’s handprint. Anna shook her head, disgusted. What kind of sick fuck would do this? She looked to see if David was okay, but he looked away, a hint of rose coloring his cheeks. She felt her brother’s presence, as if he were looking over her shoulder, his words, whispering echoes in her head. “The person I could have been was lost one night when I was barely out of the crib and I cried, Daddy, please don’t hurt me.”
These echoes were joined by her thoughts—we bury our pain and suffering to protect ourselves from the contradiction of our lives, and in the end, we become one.
The murmuring buzz beneath her feet was building; the train was on its way back. David took her hand in his and said, “Come on, let’s go.”
“Where…?” Anna frowned.
“To meet the train…” He shrugged.
David led her to the other side of the canyon, along a trail littered with rock and dead branches, until she could scarcely tell where they’d come from. The rumbling of the train shook the ground as they walked and the trail widened into a lane. Discarded items littered its edges; everything imaginable from clock springs to rusted washing machines. She couldn’t get over the variety of items around her. It was like the world’s largest flea market, only no one was buying anything. The disarray represented whole lifetimes. They passed an old stove, circa 1970, and Anna wondered whose Thanksgiving dinners had been browned in it, and whether the family had been happy. She wondered all these things and more. An old crib, its slats tattered and missing, called to her. She’d had one just like it when she was little. Something stirred on the mattress; she bent closer and a rat squealed, darting underneath the crib, leaving its nest behind. Rats nest, rats in the couch, rats her thoughts scampered around, stirring a memory; her mother had said those words or something very near them.
They had borrowed a hideaway bed from Grandpa’s house for overnight guests, and when they had unfolded the mattress, they had found a nest of rodents. Her father had put them in a burlap sack and made her brother drown them in the creek. Mark had returned later that evening, and when she had asked about the mice, he’d refused to talk about it.
The rain’s pitter-patter slowed. Anna squinted as the fog had returned, blanketing the lane and its surroundings in a misty veil. David zigzagged back and forth on the lane, humming a lullaby. She smiled, joining him. Up ahead, a signpost poked from the fog telling them that the lane ended at an intersection. The reflective green markers on its top read Lexington and 5th.
They’d entered a residential area; a row of clapboard houses marched down one side of the street disappearing into the fog. Anna thought of Frank, she’d have to call him so he could come and get her, but for the moment, she had no idea where she was. David grabbed her hand and said, “Come on, we’ve got to hurry.”
He pulled her along.
The clickety-clack of the train grew louder, imparting a sense of urgency in the boy. He tugged harder, urging her on. He was squeezing her wrist, and she didn’t like it; it gave her a feeling strangely reminiscent of Frank, who had no qualms about dragging her along if he felt it was necessary. Several months ago, Frank had gotten angry over the amount of money she was spending on groceries. She’d gone over her allowance and he had accused her of pissing the money away. He’d fired accusations at her like bullets, and when she’d grown weary and had tried to leave, he had cut her off at the door, insisting she wasn’t going anywhere. She tried to get past him but it was no use, he was stronger. He grabbed her wrist, pulling her through the house, and she tripped and fell at the base of the stairs, refusing to get up, screaming at the top of her lungs. He gave her a condescending look then continued to drag her up the entire flight, her tailbone thumping against all fifteen of the risers. Fucking Frank she chuckled, bastard. She ended up with a cracked tailbone and spent an entire month thinking of her predicament with Frank, hating him every time she sat on a hard surface. After that, whenever Frank insisted on something, she found it safer to do what he wanted.
The train was bearing down on them, the rapid click-clack of its approach overlapping into a fat steel ribbon of vibration and sound. She could see the old-fashioned train station just ahead; it was located just across the tracks, less than a block from where they were. David was rapping and singing to himself in a strange litany of nursery rhymes and lullaby’s, “Rain, rain, go away, come again another day, train, train is not afraid to play, come to stay another day.”
The grip on Anna’s wrist seemed to tighten with each staccato beat. The railroad crossing’s gates had started their descent, jarring David from his trance long enough for him to say, “Hurry, cross, or we’ll miss the train.”
He pulled harder and Anna pitched forward, almost losing her balance. He continued on, ducking underneath the crossings gates, expecting her to follow. Almost losing her balance was bad enough, but his little pincher hand squeezing her wrist was what did him in. She wrenched away from his grip as he shot forward. She stopped just shy of the crossing gate. The train tore past, rippling the blouse she was wearing; she’d just missed being the hors d’oeuvres on the train’s cowcatcher.
The fog was stifling thick, and by the time the train had passed, she could barely see the station. She’d heard the scream of metal on metal as the train braked to a stop, had even seen blue and yellow sparks flying along the track, so she was both surprised and strangely relieved at what she saw in front of the station. The train was gone and so was the boy.
Away From Home
The station was at the bottom of a steep hill. The street swept up from its base at a 45-degree angle. Anna looked up the hill. The pavement disappeared into the mist, but there was no sign of David. The fog was thicker, its greedy tendrils wrapping around the signposts and buildings, eating up the street and her view, swallowing the surroundings, swallowing her. She’d promised the boy that she’d take care of him; instead, she’d managed to lose him. She thought of how vulnerable he looked when she first saw him, a small boy wearing torn pajamas. He was so weary and afraid, but what haunted her most was the look he carried in his eyes. She had seen that look in her brother’s eyes, a look that pleaded help me.
She hurried across the tracks to the station; chances were the boy was inside and she’d misunderstood what he’d said he wanted; that was probably it, has to be. The station made her think of a one-room schoolhouse. “David,” She called out. “David, are you here? Where are you David?”
The response she got was a ghostly echo, the words disjointed, David, here, where’s David?
She hurried to the ticket counter and knocked on the glass. Surely someone here could help her. There was no answer, no voice of reason to comfort her; there hadn’t been when she was a child, and there wasn’t one now. She peaked through the window. The dusty countertop was a mess. Faded tickets were strewn across it. She could just make out the lettering on the ticket closest to her; it read: Departure, 11:00 a.m., September 20th, 1967.
Blinking her eyes, she looked again, confused. Oh, today was the 20th but the year was all wrong; she and Frank had celebrated the millennium not long ago, then she thought, it must be a misprint. A voice in her head whispered, yes, maybe so, it’s possible they got the year wrong, but the century? No, she didn’t suppose it was likely. In 1967, she would have been four years old, the same age as the boy, David. She looked closely at the ticket: Departure, 11:00 a.m., September 20th, 1967 to Harrisburg, IL, all sales are final, no transfers, no refunds.
She stepped away from the counter, her heart doing summersaults. The summer and fall of ’67 had been filled with turmoil. It was at the end of September that year when Momma had informed her that they were moving away from Harrisburg, and all the hardships they’d suffered there. Daddy had found a job down south, it was like starting over, and Momma had promised that things would be so much better, but had they been? She couldn’t remember.
Anna supposed her mother’s idea of better had meant that her father wouldn’t drink as much, but it was hard to tell because her mother never spoke of these things, just as she never acknowledged the welts and bruises Anna and her siblings had running up and down their backs and legs after one of Daddy’s raging benders. It was as if her mother believed that things left unspoken hadn’t happened or didn’t exist. Silence ended up being Mama’s talisman against all things unspeakable, and you were never, ever, allowed to break that silence, never allowed to question anything that happened inside those four walls.
She heard the low rumble of an approaching train. The clock behind the ticket counter said it was 10:55 am; the 11 o’clock train to Harrisburg was on its way. Its return sent vibrations along the floor and up into her feet. The pulsing hum shot up her legs where it created a pleasant thrumming buzz and she was suddenly horny. She was confused by the feeling, it was a bizarre notion. She had to pee. She hurried to the women’s room and when she exited, she felt better. She hurried out to the platform just as the train pulled in. A loud speaker hummed to life: “Outbound train to Harrisburg, IL now boarding, departure in 3 minutes and counting.”
A softer electronic voice continued the countdown, announcing the time remaining in 30 second intervals. She peered down the side of the train, gazing along the shiny silver surface of the train cars that stretched one after another along the track until they disappeared into the fog. Shiny and silver like a mirror casting reflections, casting reflections of her when she was two or three years old, and she was dancing. As she danced, she was full of delight and grace, so happy to be the beautiful girl that danced for her mother seated nearby. She’d been overcome by how beautiful she was and had said, “Momma, I’m beautiful.”
Her mother hadn’t replied, so she’d said, “Momma, don’t you think I’m beautiful?”
Her mother had grown stern then admonishing her for feeling that way and reminding her that “Pretty is as pretty does.”
It was a harsh lesson that would be repeated over and over again, until she finally understood that she wasn’t allowed to be proud of herself, nor allowed to think herself beautiful; the family valued humility above all things.
A harsh blatting sound startled her, the speakers blared, “All aboard, departing for Harrisburg in 30 seconds, all aboard.”
She could hear the train’s engine cycling faster but she was undecided about boarding. Harrisburg didn’t exactly evoke good memories, but she sensed that there were answers there, answers to questions she’d been carrying around for as long as she could remember, like why she’d married a man who kept her at a distance, a man who was emotionally cold—cold, like her mother…? The sound of metal scraping upon metal pierced the air, followed by a harsh pounding that she was certain had nothing to do with the train; it was the sound of something large and from what she could tell, it was angry. A conductor leaned out of a nearby train car and called, “All aboard, last call, all aboard.”
She hesitated, peering into the foggy shadows of the station. A huge figure loomed on the shadowed platform; in one hand, it held a bloody coat hanger. She screamed and jumped on board just as the train pulled away, glancing one final time at the station. A feeling of doom had burrowed into her stomach. A bloody pair of Pooh pajamas was clutched in the creature’s hands, and as she watched the station recede, it raised its bloody prize in a final salute.
[...more coming soon...]
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Comment from David Giardi
Time October 2, 2011 at 7:35 pm
Perfect!