Locomotive Story
The intense boredom of quarantine is affecting my brain. This bit of fiction just sort of sprang into existence in its entirety, the night before last. So imagine a storyteller... she is an old woman with long bright purple hair, dressed like a hippie, in purple jeans and a tie-dyed t-shirt. She sits down in a comfortable chair, as an audience forms around her. You take a seat in the audience. She begins to speak - her voice has an odd combination of a classic Midwestern American accent with undercurrents of Boston and New York City.
"Okay, now, I'm going to tell you a Locomotive Story:
Back before I started flying airships, I was a railroad engineer. I drove a big locomotive pulling a huge line of freight cars along the tracks. I just climbed up into the cabin and pulled some levers and things, and the train started up and began to roll down the track. As I went along, it rolled faster and faster, and I just enjoyed seeing all the things alongside of the track. There were factories and oil refineries, each with freight sidings so they could ship things in and out by train. There were huge fields full of crops just waiting for harvest time-and all that food would be loaded onto trains too. Sometimes the tracks passed through towns, with houses built right close to the tracks, and I wondered how people could sleep with trains like mine thundering past in the night. The train kept rolling, and we rolled over a long bridge that crossed a big river, and there were boats going up and down the river and passing under the bridge (and I knew they were also carrying cargo). And back on land, there were roads that crossed the tracks, standard railroad crossings with bells and lights and a big gate to keep road traffic off the tracks. And the train kept rolling, and it went "chug chug, clickety-clack", as it rolled across some of the flattest land on this planet, with some tall mountains visible in the distance. Sometimes there were people standing very close to the track, because they wanted to watch my train pass by. Well, they were too close, so I started honking the horn and blowing the whistle and ringing the bell, so they'd step away to a safe distance, and sometimes people waved at me. I waved back, of course. And the train kept a rolling, starting to speed up because the land was so flat, with no hills to slow me down. And then the tracks went between two of those tall mountains I'd seen, and on the other side of the mountains was just more flat land, all the way out to the horizon. And the train just kept a-rolling, going faster and faster, until I was going so fast I couldn't hear the whistle or the bell, because I'd already left their sounds behind me. And the sun was about to set, and it was getting dark, and I switched on the headlight, and there was a bright beam of light shining along the track in front of me. And the train kept a-rolling, faster and faster. I could see all the way to the horizon, because my headlight beam shone that far ahead of me. And the rails ended at the horizon, and my train and I fell off the edge of the world..."
And the old storyteller stood up and walked away. This entry was also posted at https://acelightning.dreamwidth.org/196940.html. Reply wherever you read it.
"Okay, now, I'm going to tell you a Locomotive Story:
Back before I started flying airships, I was a railroad engineer. I drove a big locomotive pulling a huge line of freight cars along the tracks. I just climbed up into the cabin and pulled some levers and things, and the train started up and began to roll down the track. As I went along, it rolled faster and faster, and I just enjoyed seeing all the things alongside of the track. There were factories and oil refineries, each with freight sidings so they could ship things in and out by train. There were huge fields full of crops just waiting for harvest time-and all that food would be loaded onto trains too. Sometimes the tracks passed through towns, with houses built right close to the tracks, and I wondered how people could sleep with trains like mine thundering past in the night. The train kept rolling, and we rolled over a long bridge that crossed a big river, and there were boats going up and down the river and passing under the bridge (and I knew they were also carrying cargo). And back on land, there were roads that crossed the tracks, standard railroad crossings with bells and lights and a big gate to keep road traffic off the tracks. And the train kept rolling, and it went "chug chug, clickety-clack", as it rolled across some of the flattest land on this planet, with some tall mountains visible in the distance. Sometimes there were people standing very close to the track, because they wanted to watch my train pass by. Well, they were too close, so I started honking the horn and blowing the whistle and ringing the bell, so they'd step away to a safe distance, and sometimes people waved at me. I waved back, of course. And the train kept a rolling, starting to speed up because the land was so flat, with no hills to slow me down. And then the tracks went between two of those tall mountains I'd seen, and on the other side of the mountains was just more flat land, all the way out to the horizon. And the train just kept a-rolling, going faster and faster, until I was going so fast I couldn't hear the whistle or the bell, because I'd already left their sounds behind me. And the sun was about to set, and it was getting dark, and I switched on the headlight, and there was a bright beam of light shining along the track in front of me. And the train kept a-rolling, faster and faster. I could see all the way to the horizon, because my headlight beam shone that far ahead of me. And the rails ended at the horizon, and my train and I fell off the edge of the world..."
And the old storyteller stood up and walked away. This entry was also posted at https://acelightning.dreamwidth.org/196940.html. Reply wherever you read it.