Micro Fiction Monday: Freedom

I saw the movement before I felt it. I had already been staring out the window for a solid ten minutes, unblinking, as I willed the metal mechanisms to pull the train forward. Then, the flowers began to move outside the window—slowly, at first, then faster, as the car lurched forward. Gears moaned and clunked together,  and I heard the engine puff and wheeze with the effort. The whistle sounded.

We were moving.

The attendant had told me to sit still, especially if this was my first time, but the energy and excitement and anticipation had built too high. I was overflowing, and like the wooden cars surrounding me,, I needed to move.

I pushed myself out of my seat and started walking, then running, then flying down the aisle. I leaped over bags and dodged passengers, yelling their complaints to my vanishing figure. I jumped from one car to the next, running opposite from where the train was taking me, my feet no longer fast enough to keep up as the scenery began to whiz by the windows. 

I pushed open a final door and felt the rush of fresh air, the wind grabbing my silk hair and running wild with it. I caught myself on the railing of the caboose, watching as the city already started to disappear from view. So it wasn’t as big as everyone thought, after all.

The whistle blew again as the train reached full speed, pulling my away from the place I had hated for so long. I closed my eyes and breathed in the freedom, the relief, and the peace.

Forever (Micro-Fiction Monday) (BEDS #29)

There was a gentle snowfall that morning. The sun hadn’t risen yet; not like he would have been able to tell through the cloudy skies, anyway. It was so early that the buses hadn’t started for the day yet, and although he tried to hail a taxi, he had had little luck. So he ran.

                

Running in the winter is an act that requires a lot of talent. It was the middle of the season; the snow on the sidewalk had long since been packed down, trampled by the hundreds of thousands of feet that had taken the same path before him. It made the ground beneath his boots uneven. His feet slipped and slid on the ice, his balance threatening to give out.

                

But still, he would not be deterred. He only had one chance, and he was running out of time.

                

The wind felt like a whip against his unprotected face. His nose and ears were numb, and every inch of his uncovered skin felt stiff in the cold. The cold air went right through his jeans, which cooled his legs down more than they warmed him up. He couldn’t feel his toes anymore.

                

The light of the train station in the winter morning was like seeing an oasis in the desert—but hearing the sharp whistle of the train sounded more like the sound a heart monitor makes after death. Gone.

                

He picked up his pace. He didn’t slow down as he burst through the windowed doors, not even has the snow caked on the bottom of his boots sent him sliding halfway to the platform. He rounded the corner, just as the tail end of the train vanished out of sight completely.

                

She was gone…forever.

~~

Until later,

- Justyne