A train too late

By PoisonInk

     An abandoned train station of which i dont know more than i can see. It seems that manny years have passed since somebody dropped on the dusty platform, the air has been glued to walls like a rust. Sometimes, on the contrary, I think the station was abandoned not long before my arrival and the blind silence  surrounding me hides a secret.
     In front of the platform extending southward there is a field. Once it was, i think, cultivated. Now it`s wild, covered with small, rough grass. The field downs to a point in a valley then climbs a low hill where the grass strips alternating with gray spots of the soil ravaged by the sun. In the distance, i can see the black line of a forest where the train truck is lost. Another track passing the train station makes a loop behind the warehouse, but after a few hundred meters it stops right before the swamp. Probably would have had to cross the swamp, but the project failed or was abandoned with the station.I could not find another explanation. A hard stench is coming from that direction. Fortunately, the wind now blows from the fields and woods, so it takes away the filthy smell of the swamp.     
      The clock on the platform,  that at first moment seemed a normal clock, clearly indicate that time itself has stopped here to run normally. Only the minute hand turns.The hour  stands still, it seems stuck in the mud  and it could not move forward. So, you know, the minute hand is  spinning in vain.   
     In one room i`ve found a lot of invoices in wich the hours of arrivals and departures where carefully noted, accurate up to a second. However, the names of towns are missing. As if either did not matter where the trains came from or where they were headed. All the trains had to pass however at the exact time, not even one second late on their way of nowhere to nowhere. Even more curious is, i can`t see anywhere passenger ticket counters. I searched all over the station, taking every single room. I found nothing that could serve for such a purpose, wich is strange, especially since there is a waiting room close to normal, with banks around, nailed to the walls. But without a ticket counter.
     In contrast, on the platform waiting room therea are two light bulbs. They are useless in daylight and perhaps miserable at night. They can not been extinguished. There is no switch. At day, the two light bulbs spread a dirty light that only helps the spiders to continue their work. At night, however, that light is not entirely useless. Since i have to say, at night a wind blows continuously and monotonously. It starts soon after sunset and it last until morning. A choking red dust is aroused by the dry grass and mostly from the barren parts toward the forest. Later, a deaf sound penetrates from the marsh, probably the sound of reeds. Without those two lights, the nights would certainly be much harder to bear in this desert, where i dont even know where I am or how i got here.
      Even the name of the station is a charade. It is reduced to three letters, white on a pale blue background, hanging over the entrance to the waiting room: ERO. I do not see the gaps left by fallen letters. Apparently, the station name was written incomplete and mysterious unpurpose, as if someone had wanted to leave every traveler to chose whatever name he wanted. I took a piece of chalk and I played trying to compose a word by adding one letter: EROS. HERO. ZERO.

... 

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Copyright 2010 PoisonInk
Published on Tuesday, December 21, 2010.     Filed under: "Reflective" and "Journal"
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