I sit in a train station, watching the people milling around and others hurrying off to other places. I sigh a bit, causing my already aged body to feel a little bit older than it is. My jacket, now damp with sweat, decides to cling a little tighter to me; to comfort me to what it is. I pull it tighter against me, its a pity at what I’ve become from all I’ve done. Assuring myself that reality is not in vain, I take my mind off of what I have and look outwardly.
I notice all the people, their different shapes and sizes; some with peg legs others with new bionic hands. Some are tall, some are small children, both eager to be somewhere other than here. There’s those clan members, always feuding and rioting, the police getting nowhere with them. And then theres the fresh immigrants from the other colonies, being led like dogs by their seasoned guides.
I remember when this train station was first built, it looked entirely different. None of the metal walls that cast mirrors over everything, or the bluish lackluster concrete that takes itself to the ceiling and the floor. Not this bench of metal, nor these train terminals or even trains. It was just a large warehouse with a single boarding platform, a lonely train making its rounds. I remember when architecture meant something to people, not how it functioned or how it looked in the end, but about the journey.
I take another deep sigh, what has the world come to. Then I lay down to try and maybe rest this heavy feeling off my chest, but suddenly I notice a boy has moved in with me. He sits on the opposite end of the long bench, a thick wool coat and a meager scarf wrapped around him comfortably. He looks at me with bright brown eyes, his skin the regular run of the mill yellowish tint, that tousled brown hair speaking volumes of his life.
He simply just appeared there, and now he begins to move in on me. He asks me a tentative question.
“Mister, what’re you doing here?”
I reply with a sad look, from the turquoise eyes I call mine. I see that recognizable glint from his deep brown eyes, and he seems to understand me from just that look.
“You must’ve seen a lot. Do you have any stories to tell?”
I sigh again, “You seem quite the questioner, where’s your parents?”
“Shucks mister, their dealing with my whiny little sister. No care about me.”
I brighten up a little, recognizing how I was at a young age. The rebellious soul I was, such eagerness to dare to dream and live to be happy. I move a bit closer to him on the bench, and his confidence doesn’t dare to shrink at all. Placing a gloved hand on his shoulder, I whisper to him,
“So you want to know a story?” I said.
“Sure.” he replied, “I love stories, ‘specially those from old people like you. My grandfather has said lots about a purple skinned man with turquoise eyes and hooks for hands. Least he says is that he is alive somewhere, out there in the world.”
I brighten up, and open myself up to him. He should know me just like a brother, and that’s been my philosophy since the beginning.
“Just give me a pen and paper.” I chuckle, “ I’ve spoken a lot more volumes in words, than in speech.”
I expect him to run off and go to the new stand and ask for a pen and paper, but he instead procures a notebook and pen from a cleverly hidden pouch in his coat. He offers me it, and I deftly take it. To emphasize his curiosity a bit more, I take off one of my gloves, and display my well shined and well polished bionic hand.
He lights up a bit more, and then sinks back into that apprehensiveness, so to settle him I pull down the scarf around my face. He must’ve been thinking right then and there I was the man his grandfather had talked about, and he would soon find out I was. I grasped the pen in one hand, the notebook cradled in my other, and deftly wrote the title to my story on the first page.
Joxus and Company
I show him the title page, and he says just what I was expecting him to,
“So you’re my grandfathers friend? That marvelous man that traversed the globe and made friends with history?”
He pantomimed flying around the globe, going to the depths of the ocean, and driving across vast distances and his ever eager eyes seemed to just melt with that curiosity. I watched him closely as I read aloud as I wrote.
“It was a gorgeous afternoon in my neighborhood. My parents were those types that had supported their kids from birth all the way to getting a full blown job. I was running early, but I still wanted to be punctual, so as I ran down the block toward the bus stop, I gave a hearty wave over my shoulder. They waved back, my small mother and my imposing father, now fuzzy memories...”
And so began the eon of life that I’ve lived.
This any better?
