It’s hard to explain the romance we have with trains. The promise of taking us to new horizons? But isn’t the real challenge to remember that Other People run those trains? 100 words to craft your fiction this week.
I’ll start with a story …
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You could see their train from a distance. Nothing was as shiny or traveled as fast. Used to be we’d get visits a few times a year, when they wooed our vote. Pretty promises from well coiffed and tailored speech balloons.
We kept tilling the soil, raising the crops, tending the herds. Even as broken tractors never got parts. Even as our electricity was cut to 16 hours a day. Then 12 … then …
We stopped pretending our votes counted and they stopped coming.
But working the land hasn’t broken us. We know the tracks lead back to them.
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Now, it’s your turn.
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featured image, cropped and enhanced, by Tim Hill, Pixabay CC0 license.
Cameron says: “Dad! There it is!”
I smiled at my son’s enthusiasm as the train roared past.
“How come it never stops?” he asked.
“A few years before you were born, government got too big for its britches. They took our cars and our planes then forced us to live primitively. A lot of people died so we took action.” I pointed at the retreating train as it cleared the bridge.
“That’s a prison for them. They live on the one remaining train they forced us to pay for. They get to see us rebuild the country but can never get outside.”
Cameron says: OK…no idea why my post was italicized…
Darleen Click says: Sorry about that … looks like it was an orphan italics tag. Fixed now.
Thanks, too, for your story!
Brian Brandt says: Please explain how to do italic in a post.
Darleen Click says: To do italics … open tag [em] closing tag [/em] but use the carrots < and > instead of the brackets [ or ]
Paul B says: After the Hudson was dammed and drained, we extended President AOC’s high-speed rail through the Adirondacks towards New England. With all the smelters shut down because of the carbon footprint, the bridges had to be constructed of stone, most of which was salvaged from the old buildings in the city we tore down. There was plenty of salvaged metal from the old cars and planes to use for rail.
My wife had a good job, 15 bucks an hour tending the community turnip farm in the old East River riverbed. We though it would last forever.
Then the aliens arrived…
Stephen Miller says: Every day, twelve-thirty-seven on the nose. Not even the sunrise is so predictable.
Jeff died last night. It’s just me and Kate left. We’ll be moving on soon, I guess. Not much point in staying here now.
It should have worked. They said it would fix everything. No more cars, no more planes…all that crap clogging up the atmosphere would fade away. We cheered, and we clapped, and we re-elected them again and again.
Then they cut the power — in our neighborhood, at least.
Then the food stopped coming.
But the trains still run on time.
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