Torch Song For A Night Ride. Prompts used: a train, it's good to have dreams.
The
sound of the ten o’clock express hitting the tracks was enough to
wake Peter from what had been a very deep nap. He opened one eye,
slowly, to see the red blinking light display the time from across
the darkened room. Moonlight from the semi-opened window created a
grey path that connected the foot of the bed to the faraway dresser.
It
had only been about an hour since Peter lay back onto the bedspread,
fully clothed, and attempted a decent nap time twice as long as he
actually slept for. Papers were spread out on his desk in fan shapes,
a desperate method of concentration based on the placement of objects
that only worked half the time. A red pen sat on top of the mess,
awaiting further instructions.
Instead,
Peter sat up in his bed and stared out the window. He could see from
the section of window that peeked through the parted heavy curtains
the outline of the world at night, silhouettes of trees against his
neighbor’s house. In the distance, the curve of the hill upon which
the train tracks ran, upon which the train was still coursing along
as per schedule. Two minutes past ten. It sounded like a freight
train, even though Peter knew little about freight trains and what
they carried, just that it seemed like it should have more weight to
it, more heft, a larger frame for all the mass it carried about every
day.
A
sharp screech of wheels sliding against metal came from the hill.
Peter closed his eyes, as if waiting for the impact of a crash. He
opened his eyes a second later, disappointed. The back end of the
train whipped around the soft corner of the hill, and disappeared
over the edge and into the blank darkness of the horizon, its path
lit only by the crescent moon drifting overhead.
He
was still disappointed. He wanted fire. He wanted the crash of metal
against earth, of broken glass tumbling through gnarled tree
branches. He wanted to watch the flames climb up the side of the
smashed body of the train, climbing higher and higher into the sky
until they looked like a ladder reaching into the stars. He wanted
these things and he did not know why, but he did, and he continued to
be disappointed as he watched out the window. Already, the fumes of
sleep were gone, replaced by the cold sharpness of clarity gained
from a long day and an even longer night.
Peter
decided that he’d stay in bed. He would not grade essays from his
students. He would not go downstairs where his wife was, present in
the framed photographs and the unopened letters on the hallway table
and in the blinking red light of the answering machine on a phone he
intended to disconnect in the morning. He would not rise, not yet. He
also would not sleep.
In
his freshman composition class, he had a student who often wrote
about dreams. Not those of aspirations, but dreams she had every
night. Her portfolio was beginning to look like a dream diary, filled
with images of dead family members, missing teeth, rushing water,
disembodied screams, a world that was faceless and terrifying and yet
comforting in its repetition.
Peter
would often ask her if she would write about anything else that
semester, just for a change. She said she’d consider it, then wrote
an introspective piece about a dream from the night before, in which
she was in the water and yet burning from the inside out, and all her
teachers were there, and her parents too. “Why don’t you change?”
they asked. “Change everything,” they pleaded. They fell apart in
front of her eyes, from flesh to sand.
“Next
time, write about a family vacation.” Peter gave the girl’s paper
a C. She dropped out the next week. He didn’t think about her until
that night, when the train woke him from a vague collection of images
he could only recall for one second before they slipped away to be
forgotten.
“It’s
good to have dreams,” his wife said. She rolled over and propped
herself up on her elbows. “Did you have a nice nap?”
Peter’s
eyes moved over the outlines of his wife’s face. “I didn’t
sleep at all. Not even a little.”
“Why
not?”
“I
don’t know.” He rubbed his eyes in mock exhaustion. “Maybe I’m
too tired to sleep.”
“Come
sleep with me.”
“I
should finish my work.”
“No.”
Her eyes flashed. She was on fire. The room was billowing flames and
smoke. “You should come with me.” She reached for his hand.
The
roar of the train woke Peter up. He jolted up from the bedspread,
fully dressed, clothes soaked in a heavy layer of sweat. The window
was open and the night air set the curtains to waving in the breeze.
He laid his hand across his breastbone and felt his heart thump back
to normal. He remembered that he was alone. Then he blinked, and he
forgot what he had been so worried about.
Outside,
the train inched past on its path across the hillside. The wheels
rolled against the smooth curved metal as if it wanted to jump the
track.
Here are the other bloggers who are flashing this week:
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