The Last Wild West Train

A few lone thin strangers inhabited the dry sun baked dustbowl of a station. They lingered in the shade, shunning conversation. I looked in vain for a station manager who might give me an assurance the train was on time but there were no other signs of life. Time seemed fixed into stillness by the sun's piercing glare. The hot tedium of the wait was exhausting. I wiped the sweat off my brow, took my eyes off the big station clock and gazed at a locked shabby platform door with a cracked window. I was beginning to feel anxious, though I comforted myself with the thought I always experienced uneasy sensations of dread before a journey. Suddenly a distant whistle shrieked downwind along the flat expanse of track. The heavy tremble of metal on metal grew ever louder. The singing rails made me think of the future, my trepidations disappeared and I was momentarily filled with a thrill of hope, though I had no idea what to expect. The gargantuan iron train seethed into the station, a thunderous onslaught of metallic blasts and wrenching pistons, the huge wheels slowly gliding by in blistering clouds of steam.

There was no seat available in the saloon and I couldn't find my ticket.

The ticket inspector pointed to the back of the carriage. I walked anxiously, unsteadily through a door onto a crude wooden truck at the rear of the train, buffeted by the wind.

Three dark hooded figures were sitting there. "Animals... they treat us like animals," one of them growled ferociously beneath his shroud.

Little Blue Fish

I was chased around the room by a little blue fish.