© 2011 asotir.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
9
DAYLIGHT streamed through the dirty windows of the station.
At the ticket window, the clerk slapped a ticket down.
‘One Voyager, points East, good for 90 days.’
A hand in a brown glove took the ticket and departed. The clerk leaned forward in the window.
‘Sir, you want to keep it down, please? – Next!’
The gloved hand moved away. The man crossed the concourse. The gloved hand slipped the ticket into the pocket of the brown coat. He carried beneath his other arm, close to his body, a glass jar. The glass jar was filled with a black, cloudy ink. The ink jostled as though something stirred in it.
The man passed through the gateway onto the platform. He wore a brown coat, brown trousers, and a brown fedora. He crossed the platform and stepped onto a car.
On the step the man in the fedora stopped and looked over his shoulder.
Two girls dressed like punks passed by. They were thirteen or fourteen years old. One spoke.
‘I don’t care what my stupid Mother says. I want a tattoo, I think they’re cool, and I’m getting one. What does she care anyway?’
The man in the fedora smiled.
He climbed into the railway car. The door shut behind him and the train began to moved out of the station, heading east.
