glasses and dragons.

the girl has been down with the yellow fever. and she knows she will never get better.

she will not be able to fix this. like she fixes everything.

and the little things matter. and she always bets on the losing horses because she knows they lose.

maybe they lose so much that they'll be happy enough to win her.

maybe she

could be a loss.

she feels so little sometimes. like so molecular.

all these bugs surround her like she's already dead.

they're all waiting. 

and they all feel so sorry.

did you know what happened to her father

they all know that she thinks of killing herself.

deep down they expect her to. it's only logical.

the flies are hungry and waiting for her to die.

she would have if she weren't so scared of dying. 

of losing her potential.

but she thinks about it all the time.

sometimes that's all she thinks about.

other times she thinks of all that she is not. and never will be again.

 

she dreams of being owned again.

a dream away.

never forsaken.

the flies never enter her dreams. they are too fat to fit through her ears.

while walking she meets a boy. 

do you hate home because of your father.

i don't know maybe. she laughs because that's sort of far from crying.

his mother calls him from afar. and he shouts back at her. she is upset that he isn't sleeping.

their conversation is uncomfortably intimate.

this whole thing feels uncomfortable.

and intimate.

she doesn't know how to pronounce it.

in tee met

ein tea meet

in tea meet

do you want to have coffee with me

no. it upsets my stomach.

she watches the dragons and he watches her. he wears these spectacles. they're sort of grey. and he makes her laugh.

sometimes.

sometimes he speaks too much. sometimes he is too intimate. sometimes there's always something that's wrong.

her body leaves her when he sat next to her. this is a strange sort of abandonment she thinks. on the brown, he gets closer and she starts shivering.

she will vomit.

he is not wearing his glasses today, she thinks.

he will be opportunistic today. 

but he wears this watch. 

and makes her feel

like a daughter.

he asks for her hand.

she decides to tell him about how harrowing it has been.

i would give you a hug but

she doesn't do hugs.

but she has told him.

somewhere deep down she hopes it scares him away. the horror.

the horror leaves her mouth like vomit with scraps of food from yesterday's dinner.

her stomach hurts when he seems to understand.

it hurts even more when he doesn't.

somewhere deep down she hoped she would be a loss heavy enough.

instead he puts her in her place. the kid that she is. he draws open the curtains and the kid she protects comes out scared and shivering. her kid is under the spotlight. 

where she can't save her anymore.

she speculates whether her horrors were

another story.

another theatre script.

all those horrors. she could have cried that day.

he didn't wear his glasses today either, she thinks.

he then looks at her with an infantilizing lust. she feels like a child and she feels how it felt at 13.

she hides her kid and acts tough. like she can handle that. like she handled it at 13.

she does some big adult tough things.

she is       not

13.

18.

i've been thinking and i want to put a stop to 

whatever this is.

she wonders if he wore his glasses when he wrote that.

she wears a white shirt. he has kept his hair dry today. not greasy like he did when he needed something from her.

he then shuts a door on her face.

but opens it for her when she walks through.

he wore his glasses today, she thinks.

she cried. 

she remembered her mother from a while ago. when she took off her glasses. and when she kept them on. she liked it off.

she remembered her father from a while ago. when he wore them at night. and when he kept them off.

she liked it on.

they were different people.

she sits in the grass. and refuses to keep walking. there's nowhere to run to.

she has no more money for the horses.

and she will always remain a child that came from nowhere. everyone in the class is older than her.

what train, what track. 

she will die his daughter. she will die with no autonomy of her own.

she will die knowing her fate.

she will die having heard an echo of everything that happens to her.

she will die.

down by the train tracks.

she only ever wanted to live, she tells me.

all the pebbles in her pocket are so heavy. and she is so scared of being naked and dead.

forwards beckoning.

 the girl on the train wasn't always the girl on the train. she didn't always want to be on the move. 

she once used to sit in the passenger seat of a car while her father drove it.

but that was a long time ago.

but it felt like she was 8 just last week. 

she was just 8 last week.

*

it was difficult being apprehensive all the time, for her. but that is the way of life. passengers on a train came and went. 

they always got down at their stop. and that is the way of life.

she saw her father after years. he looked older. greyer. crow's feet when he laughed. whenever he did.

and now the train only looked forward.

but he took the seat at the back. and he always wished they'd go back.

trains don't go backwards.

i'm sorry, he said. he stroked her hair, like fathers do.

the girl sobbed. 

and she took the seat in the front.

forwards beckoning.

*

one day, he jumped. 

out the window he would always look out of.

nothing dramatic. 

and it wasn't censored, the blood and the pain. nothing out of frame.

the little girl left her seat and she collected the remains.

all those that watched, all those that spoke

did not love him half as much as she did.

but she did not speak. not a word.

they all felt sorry. very sorry.

but not enough to protect her. not enough for resolution.

she knew it was not her fault, but it was her responsibility. 

she picked up all his bones.

she walked down the steps and let the train leave,

knowing it wouldn't return.

i'm sure we're taller in another dimension

you say we're small and not worth the mention

you're tired of movin', your body's achin' 

we could vacay, there's places to go

clearly, this isn't all that there is 

can't take what's been given

but we're so okay here, we're doing fine 

she sat at the bus station, not knowing when the bus would come. full of uncertainty. surrounded by people who didn't know her.

who said they knew her.

who wanted to know how she did what she did.

there came with the boy with the big eyes. 

and she couldn't recognize him any more.

or maybe it didn't matter anymore.

she no longer remembered why she wanted the window seat.

or when last anyone had let her have one.

*

she sat there, rain surrounding her. 

wondering how much of herself she had lost on a train ride.

how much she still had left to lose.

it was once he left that she realized she loved him as much as she did.

that she needed him. 

she needed to know he was there, somewhere.

that she could run home one day. however difficult it was.

she refused to speak about him.

none of his virtues, none of his vices.

and she understood that she would never love someone like that again.

and perhaps she never had

before him.

suddenly she felt naked in front of a hungry audience.

and she made sure that they would never see her cry again.

and she'd take care of herself

like he had told her to.

like he couldn't.

like all the others couldn't.

like nobody would ever.

i'm sorry, she said. to him. 

to herself.

*

she could hear the train engines from afar. 

without her.

forwards beckoning.

*

balloontown.

 when the train started running again, it ran with a sense of escapism. now, the only goal being to run. far from reason and ingenuity. far from anything that was frightening. anything that came too close to the borders.

the train never stopped. 

our little girl didn't have much strength to force it to stop. she lumped into the seat, exhausted. tired. still going on. 

hi. oh my god that book. we read that for our reading list at school.

and she turned her head to the seat behind her. hey. hi? hi.

she looked towards the engine room and her feet on the floor felt the vibrations of the wheels racing across the track. faster and faster. she was worried. there wasn't supposed to be another passenger. 

are you alright ?

the passenger was very pretty. like a deer, if compared. gentle and kind. careful and composed.

and when she spoke, it sounded like royalty. 

it felt so unfair. it felt so unfair. it felt so unfair. it felt so unfair. so damn unfair.

she could have just not turned back. but that unwavering loyalty for someone else had rotten. there was nothing left of it. she could have cried a little more to keep it alive. but the train was moving fast. there was no time at all, no time at all.

so she bought the passenger a balloon. she stopped the train, ran across to balloontown. and brought back a pink balloon. one shaped like a heart. it seemed like something she would like. 

im very sad, said the girl.

that's alright. replied the passenger.

now you know i am sad. that is not the way it is to be. said the girl.

i know. replied the passenger.

i like how you use exclamation marks. said the girl.

oh ? replied the passenger, smiling.

you're going to miss me when i'm gone.

i have a feeling i will.

so she taught the girl how to sing that with her hands.

the girl did not notice when the train started slowing down. she instead, noticed a golden heart necklace, her passenger never took off. 

one day, the passenger decided to sit next to our girl. the seat beside the window seat. the middle seat. not even the aisle one. there could be no possible advantages to this, unless you had fondness in your heart.

but it was a little too sudden.

she asked for the girl's hand, and asked to read her palm.

and the train moved faster. and the girl got scared. 

and train couldn't run any faster from the passengers it had let in.

the girl watched as the passenger held her hand. and it broke her heart. slowly. steadily. in pieces. whatever amount of it was left. she could hear it break. she knew it had broken beyond repair.

come on don't leave me it can't be that easy

she looked out the window, gently dissociating from her hand. protecting herself from the rest of the hurt that would explode any second. a single tear fell. like how it falls before one dies.

she didn't remember what she missed. she remembered how she let it happen the first time. the second time. the third time and the fourth. and the fifth and the sixth. and the rest.

if you believe me i guess ill get on a plane

she wanted to never speak to the passenger again. she wanted no one to touch her again. she wanted to cry.

and the passenger sat, realizing all of it.

and she looked at the passenger, in a sorry state

fly to your city, excited to see your face

and those must've been the saddest hands holding each other on a highway. 

hold me console me and then ill leave without a trace.

the train stopped at the cemetery.

and the girl got off the train.

no kiss goodbye.

she didn't even look back.

and closed the door.

but the passenger didn't let the train start running until she knew there it was coming back for the girl.

*

she had the kindest brown eyes, said the girl much later.

but it had only been two days. she showed me kindness in two days.

last time i waited for a year.

i waited for a year for the kindness she showed me in two days.

two days.

and she liked sharks. and she had a mark on her face where a dog bit her. and she was very intelligent and very wise. and she watched silly romantic movies. and she named my bear juniper. and she sang very softly, and she was beautiful. 

the man at the station didn't understand what the girl meant. he nodded along anyway. 

"what happened then? why didn't you stay?"

it was not the time. i didn't have it in me anymore. 

"is that it?"

i don't know. maybe i needed this.

maybe i needed it from someone else.

"and?"

i could have loved her.

it was simple. it was sweetness. it was good to know.

but i would never have loved her. it wouldn't be love.

and i couldn't have lied to her. 

"and?"

i didn't think i was loveable. i didn't want her to be the one to prove me wrong.

i didn't want to be proved wrong.

it's easier that way. easier for me.

to hover when i needed it.

"hm."

i hope she knows i'm sorry. 

"your train. it's here."

she was not on the train anymore.

*

will i miss my stop if i fall asleep ?

nothing ever ends poetically.

all beginnings and endings

are bloody and raw.

none of this is supposed to be pretty.

but they were supposed to fix the seats. the one our protagonist continued sitting in was rickety and wobbly. 

i don't understand why someone would adjust to that.

this time however

our train took a different path. 

from the window, you could see the rain water slope down against the glass and when the 

train passed through you could hear the leaves hit the metal body.

the path was cosy and a little cold, but the train provided blankets.

the path was too distracting for me to remember how this episode started.

-

the innocence in the eyes reminded our little girl of the boy she had eaten alive.

but there was something else.

something she couldn't put a finger on.

she knew not to read between the lines now, so she ignored it like the mosquito bites she had been getting.

she sat in a different seat for a change,

but the passenger always sat close to her.

instead she wondered if the new passenger knew how intimate rain was to her.

and deep deep inside she told herself

dear god don't make me regret this.

i think god might've been slightly irritated by this seeing how she admitted herself to reason than religion.

but when she recognized hunger in those eyes,

her heart sank a little.

still floated of course, but

sank a little.

so she left her body once again and spoke softly in her mind

im afraid of falling in love

because youll make me feel like im on the top of the world and 

thats a long way to fall

and somehow 

someone heard it.

-

our little girl heard this 

in 

her voice

i love you in the way an abandoned house might love a person who had stumbled upon it

with sheer desperation and a sliver of hope

and that is when the window glass started cracking.

but the passenger said

i'm good at fixing windows.

i'll fix them up in our house too

you won't have to.

i'll fix you up

you won't have to.

or maybe i have writer's bias.

either way, a thief should never be told that luxury is hers

because then

she starts to personalize things that aren't hers, not preparing for the guilt that she usually knows comes after.

later

it just feels like a white hatted betrayal behind her back.

just like one felt long ago.

that reminds me of something kafka wrote to milena-

perhaps it isn't love when i say you are what i love most

you are the knife i turn inside myself

this is love

this, my dear, is love

-

it must be so nice to forget time and to forgive life. to her, that was the train ride through the forests.

but she knew the forest ended somewhere. or else the whole of earth would be rather pretty.

sometimes there is a clinical satisfaction in seeing how bad things can get. 

and sometimes she knew she was betting on a loss.

i wonder if the meaning in that thought dissolved when she watered herself down with all the pretty empty words.

moreover, our protagonist always did have a habit of idealizing pain.

from where she came from, pain was inevitably born in every house

one had to learn how to give reason to it, to survive.

when she saw the blue colouring itself in again, she made the excuses for her own self.

and the mistakes got worse

but she knew how to write

so she wrote all the explanations herself.

in a cruel satirical way, she was making amends to people.

destroying herself this time, the way all those travellers wanted her to.

destroying herself, to ask the traveller to make the journey with her this time.

oh but this story wasn't hers to write.

wasn't hers at all.

-

there's a sickening feeling of familiarity

when the wrong person knows you too well

and you know them too well

and they weren't always the wrong person.

the passenger looked disfigured now. she did not resemble any of the travellers our protagonist had seen before. and everything was so blue.

she could no longer sit in her seat because other people kept taking it before she could and she always sat right in the front.

the train had left the rainforest, and ran through tunnels again.

the passenger had killed a frog.

and she hadn't slept in weeks.

-

the girl wondered why the train wasn't stopping. still she didn't dare sleep.

because if she did, her passenger would leave.

the passenger.

she was scared she would hate her if she didn't keep on loving.

all passenger did was look through the window with longing in her eyes to escape.

but did smile back at times.

and when the tunnel ended under a dark sky

said

im here

always

yours

love

as the author, this looks like a fucked up story about a killer and a burglar.

-

turns out our passenger intended to ride the train through the forest for the experience.

it is beautiful, that journey.

she didn't intend on the rest.

still, absquatulation seemed cleaner than sawing a door into the train wall.

the girl was more hurt than angry.

and the repairs almost took forever before the train could run again.

the train wasn't very happy that it was stopped before it did on its own.

intervals.

they never do talk about aftermaths as well as they do about the journey.

seems a bit unfair.

because without rebuilding rome, there can't really be wars.

and the warriors don't really care about what happens in between, as long as the lands have their name on them.

the land can only take so much

before it begins to crack.

but once you were on the train, it did not stop. not for you. not for our protagonist. not for any of the ill-fated passengers.

-

the one with the blue eyed dog.

the train was rarely empty. but when it was, the girl would go to the seat at the far end and lay down with her legs atop the seat.

she didn't worry that someone would pry them open then.

the first time she spoke to the boy was when she laughed about the bus.

a bus too yellow.

a bus too pretty.

he agreed.

which to her meant that he saw the world like she did.

she had forgotten how to agonize her co passengers. which can be dangerous in scenarios like these.

in her defense he soon told her

im in love with you

why

you thrill me

and she probably would have laughed this off if he didn't speak kindly.

or if she hadn't told him how much she liked tulips.

or the planetarium.

or if he didn't smile when she made silly jokes.

or if he didn't go down on one knee and wrap a bracelet around her finger.

and she probably should've laughed it off

because one day

he made her feel like she was the most disposable thing in the world.

and that it was hurtful that she felt like that

because he didn't intend to.

he was simply a boy.

so when he later kissed this girl when the train was passing in a tunnel late at night,

she only felt very vomitish.

perhaps we can owe it to an acquired motion sickness.

he stopped boarding the train after that.

she didn't really miss him

she missed his blue eyed dog.

-

the one with the void.

the train made sure never to stop at places its passengers would get lost in. or lose themselves in. 

but then again, there were unfortunate exceptions.

it was almost 2 when the train halted here, and there were flashing lights that spilt onto the seats from the casinos in the horizon. the music was barely music. the music was a whole lot of sound. 

even the wind was too loud.

it is usually advisable not to leave the train when it is parked, but she knew the train would come back. it was the only train that ever arrived.

the floor outside the train was sandy, and she was too sad not to gamble.

for god's sake, she wasn't even looking for love.

so we could call it a decision. not a choice.

but the lord did not know all this. he had only ever known consumption. 

and she was too exhausted not to pick herself apart in front of him.

she should have understood that this,

was not a poetic sort of cannibalism.

this

was simply cannibalism.

he just liked to eat.

the girl didn't try to satisfy the lord's hunger. instead she often gave him old nutshells and candy bars from her pockets. she felt pity for the lord, for he only knew a world of money.

she wanted him to soften for a kinder perspective on the world.

a kinder perspective on her.

she refused to admit that he was simply a hungry man. 

a man who had taught her to speak the language of the woman he had once abandoned.

who had now tied himself to her against her will.

the girl in ropes finally acquiesced to his relentless pleas 

and sat in the ocean scrubbing her legs for the rest of the day.

she took the first train that arrived next morning.

meanwhile the lord made a shrine for the second girl he had ever loved. 

who had the nerve to leave.

i thought possession was much more intimate than that.

-

the one with the glasses.

she had been away from home for two years now and the train never returned to where it had started from.

perhaps, that is why it was frightening when the reader got on the train.

people usually slept on the train.

those that read, she did not speak to.

it always meant that they knew more words than they understood. once you know words, you get better at being believable.

the reader smiled at her when he walked in.

like he had known her from another life.

she found it amusing mostly

because this was the only life she would ever live.

all the others simply fed stories.

still yet, his consistency surprised her.

he always made good time.

right at 7.05

every day.

and the train always stopped at his station.

he spoke to her about all the cities he had walked to.

all the trinkets in her bag.

and handed her one.

what's this

pisces

like the fish ?

oh i never thought of it that deeply. it simply came to mind one day.

she learnt how to write about his blinding rage against a profit centred society.

she learnt how to smile when he said he had written in a book for her, where he kept flowers picked whenever he remembered her.

she learnt how to listen and understand when he spoke of his bride before her, as a fond reality than a fond memory.

she learnt how to ask him for reason when he left his darling standing alone at the ball

or when his darling felt lonelier with him than without.

he stopped calling her darling.

in all fairness, she found it disgusting.

when she learnt that she was simply a weighing down a scale, she grew quieter.

the reader tossed his books aside for the newsletter on his phone,

and called our girl a child.

then

she thought how he had asked her

is a dog that weeps after it kills better than one that does not

no.

your guilt doesn't purify you.

what a fucking phony.

-

the girl did always ask to sit in the driver's compartment, but she never could find the door.

she was tired of thinking instead of acting.

all the beauty in these stories was in her head.

outsiders would call all of this pretty ugly.

you're at the wrong station.

the girl was tired of being a protagonist.
in fact, she had never really asked to be one.
she would be irreparably happy to have been 
just another passenger.

she was instead,
stuck being 
an immortal with no home.

the train seemed so sad nowadays.
she didn't care about a window seat.
she sat down in the seat
nearest the exit.
as soon as the train stopped,
she would leave.

the sun stopped rising.
and the moon stopped singing.
the train travelled places that
resembled the oesophagus of something spiraling.
and she did not want to go back home.

the train stopped at a new station.
a boy with his shoes shined stepped onto the train.
this boy seemed to have his destination set. 
he bought a ticket, which our girl never had.
the train, now jam packed, left a seat beside our girl.

-

the girl no longer liked speaking to strangers.

her mother had warned her long ago, to keep her distance.

anger really is a funny emotion.

however it gets less funny when it rots into contempt.

not funny at all, actually.

she wasn't violent though. she never bit anybody before.

but it vexed her how simple this boy was.

how he didn't mind what seat he sat on as long as it was near her.

she kept mum, but her skin burnt with a stale anger. and a bit of rancid disgust.

these are ugly emotions.

she was not an ugly person.

it was an accident, she told herself.

(but only because she hadn't learnt how to explain herself yet.

from then on, all she did was explain herself.)

a hunger had been planted in her and

now there was nothing left of him. 

a greyscale shell.

and it felt so pompous to take credit for his ruin.

this train had no place without ghosts.

-

i'm sorry.

-

she tried running away, but no other train ever came.

always the blue train with red speckles and cranky wheels.

always right at dusk.

living the same day, over and over

and over again.

and watching different deaths

over and over

and over again.

-

the strange concept of love.

 the girl was now a little bit more protective of herself.

perhaps, also her seat. 

the first rains made the windows of the train foggy,

and the girl would spend her journeys making drawings on them.

she knew little of condensation,

and more of the worlds she chose to bring to life.

she lived in a universe of her own

with the ghosts that would sit with her at night

recollecting her pain

and putting it down on paper.

one day all the paper in the world seemed to have lost its magic.

and that is the day she discovered another passenger on the train.

i hate this part of the story.

-

there is an innate human tendency to perceive a higher version of the self when you look in the mirror.

or when putting oneself down in front of you.

i believe she saw a similar higher self in her co passenger.

she was sure to make sharp observations, as she was accustomed to.

this person, never sat in the same seat.

in a way, it was brave.

our little girl would never have given up her seat.

it was her seat.

now this person

the whole train seemed to be hers.

she was brave in ways ours could never be.

she might not have been beautiful, but she wore whatever she had on with indistinguishable pride.

she needed nobody else to complement her.

and worst of all, for our protagonist,

she was just an ordinary girl.

she bore nothing that exceeded limits.

and in every quantitative measure, our little girl ran the race much farther than her.

her ordinariness seemed so scary.

-

when our girl started disliking the new addition, it was understandable that it came from a place of intimidation.

but she approached her, nonetheless.

to perhaps,

extract.

steal.

run.

the ordinary girl was indifferent to approach,

at first.

but then looked at her.

thought nothing harmful of it.

slid to the window seat, and offered the aisle.

our little lady had never given up her window seat,

but 

it's okay i guess.

it's okay, 

she guessed.

-

for a long time,

the extraordinary girl was okay sitting in the aisle seat.

and the beautiful ordinary girl sat in the window seat.

and they talked.

atleast she did.

about lives.

deaths.

loves.

hatred.

all the little sad things.

all the things which seemed happy.

about the boy with the big eyes.

the beautiful ordinary girl listened.

she nodded.

and smiled.

and kept mum.

there was something so special about her silence.

it felt like

something

our protagonist wasn't worthy of.

no

the protagonist wasn't worthy of her presence.

in front of her,

our girl crumbles.

like a castle of cards.

all that fuss over nothing,

the silence seems uncomfortable.

so she talks.

and talks.

and talks.

and

talks.

-

one day 

our girl boards the train.

and it is silent.

with all the talking she's done,

she opens her mouth to fill the swallowing silence,

but

nothing comes out.

there is an excruciating pain.

and the silent girl 

is on another seat.

with another passenger.

and she watched him talk.

and watched her listen.

the silent girl looks at her.

for a second.

the look holds pity.

an eerie pity.

our girl screams.

shrieks.

all in silence.

not a word to be heard.

the train bustles with noise. there is the clinking of the teacups. the shuffling of feet. the periodic snap of the fan every time it completes a round. the laughing of children. the anxious chattering. the jerking of the train. the bell.

the train is no longer safe.