Carrot Ranch Congress of Rough Writers Flash Fiction Challenge, September 9, 2015 prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story about someone or something that’s lost.
KING STREET STATION
KING STREET STATION
Same bus stop bench, different day.
Traffic choreographs itself. Buses fart, horns blare, an argument approaches and fades as a couple walks by. Over the parapet, in the tunnels, a train clangs as it shuffles up to the platform.
A train. Quiet. Away. Being rocked to sleep, able to sleep.
She hates this city. Oh, she’d wanted to be here, she’d thought, but reality has been harshly different. She’s been trying to live someone else’s life.
Leave it all behind. She has the money, just enough. A ticket. Home. Just go.
She stands up and walks toward the station.
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| Alvin Trusty/Flickr/Creative Commons |
Ah, there's such a feel of discontent in that opening line. The cityscape swallows her up until she makes that choice. Great use of the prompt!
ReplyDeleteThank you for a great prompt, and for stopping by!
ReplyDeleteYou've done this well getting the unhappiness that she has found in the city. It hadn't lived up to expectations as I've found are often the case with expectations. Great decision she made to not be lost in the city but rather go back and refinding herself.
ReplyDeleteAhh the attempt to find oneself by simply changing location, as if the self were truly defined by place and not carried within. Loved the evocation of the city: "Traffic choreographs itself. Buses fart, horns blare, an argument approaches and fades as a couple walks by. Over the parapet, in the tunnels, a train clangs as it shuffles up to the platform." Just great.
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