I Have Written a Short Story

Spring comes to a close as I stand beneath the scorching sun, watching the tracks. My feet itch to be moving again, to feel the steady rhythm of miles passing beneath my feet. My anxious breath stirs the stagnant, sweltering summer air that weighs down my shoulders and sends sweat trickling down my back. Restless, I stand and wipe my face, swinging my heavy bag onto my shoulders and pace the length of the platform. It is surprisingly empty today, not many waiting here like I am and they all wear the same sun-wearied expression I know scrunches my brows and hunches my shoulders. My heavy boots plunk with each step I take, echoing in the dense afternoon. I light a cigarette, hoping the nicotine will settle my uneasy heart as I continue to trudge down the bricks that line the platform.  As I reach the end I hear the distant horn as my salvation slogs up the old tracks, at a pace I find frustratingly slow. Not soon enough, I’m climbing the steps into the carriage cars and settled into the blue fabric of the seat that will be my home for the next fifteen hours.

I don’t know what awaits the end of the journey. Had you asked me the week before, I would have said that home waits seven hundred miles at the end of these tracks, but I don’t know any more. I have slept many nights and changed beneath the light of an unfamiliar moon, so much so that I fear the home I find when I return will not be the home I left. The friends I bid farewell to will no longer be those that I have loved, and the streets I have known will no longer remember my face. It’s a strange thing, that I am feeling homesick for a place and a feeling that may not even exist anymore.