Write a story using the phrase, “The earth shook”.
Phoebe balanced on the rail of the train track, still panting from her wild climb up the hill. The rail felt smooth and warm on her battered feet. She lifted one foot and glanced at the sole - it was torn, scratched and bleeding. Typical of her to be so stupid as to come here with bare feet.
She intended to kill herself but she hadn’t intended to do herself so much damage on the way.
She reviewed her decision. She thought about the kid from her school who’d been killed on the tracks last year. Lester. Lester Yellowfeather who’d lived on the reservation. Nobody knew if he’d done it on purpose or not, but the accepted wisdom was that it had been quick and painless. Well, painless? - who knew, but quick, anyway. Quick was the important thing.
The 11:35 freight would be along in a few minutes and that would be that.
She stepped on a tie between the two rails, then bent to put a hand to the rail. Did she feel a faint murmur in the rail? She put an ear to the silver track, as she’d done many times near here in the past. Yes, the familiar hum was definitely stirring the rail. In a few moments, the train would round the bend a half mile away.
So, this was it. She straightened, standing tall between the rails. She closed her eyes and stilled her breathing, just as she had when she’d imagined this happening. For an instant, she could feel the summer sun drying the grasses around her, then she put her senses away so that the sound of the train racing toward her dissolved into her own heartbeat.
Suddenly the wail of the train’s whistle rent the air. Get off! it shouted.
Phoebe’s eyes flew open. Get off the tracks. Get off NOW, the whistle screamed at her with ferocious intensity. From somewhere, she collided back into her body. Her muscles clenched beneath her and she flew off the tracks, coiling into a rolling ball almost exactly as the train sliced through the space where she had been. Where she not quite still was.
She landed against a grassy tuffet at the foot of the little gravelled incline. She lay there, curled into a cocoon. The earth beneath her shook as the mighty engines and heavy boxcars flew by. The whistle sounded its furious reprimand over and over, Don’t ever do that again! Never EVER do that again. Never ever EVER.
For some unimaginable amount of time the train pounded by. Phoebe lay unmoving, palms pressed into the jagged gravel. Finally the last car passed. Her heart slowly resumed its regular rhythm as she heard the train disappear into the distance.
She pushed herself up with trembling arms til she was sitting. She lifted her head and inhaled, allowing her senses to begin talking with her again. She could smell barnyard smells from the livestock cars that had so recently passed through. The trees soughed behind her; a little brown bird flickered by. The sun beat down on her with its summer intensity.
She looked at her arms and legs stretched in front of her.
They could have been broken, but they weren’t. She thought about the baby taking shape inside her. It could have been broken, but it wasn’t.
She could have been dead, but she wasn’t.
She got up, scrambled up the little incline and carefully crossed the tracks. No, she wasn’t dead at all.
Phoebe set off down the hill.
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4 comments:
I really enjoyed this story because it took be right there to the train tracks and held my attention with great word pictures and descriptions of how Phoebe was feeling.
I'm not sure that the battered feet adds anything to the story and I wondered whethered she would be present to them as she descended the hill at the end.
I particularly love the relationship she creates with the train coming, the hum and the murmerings and also the separation and coming together of Phoebe the physical person and her senses.
Well done Heather. It's good to be back isn't it.
Kerry says:
Good word pictures Heather. I would have liked to get into Phoebe's world a bit more before the train thundered in. Also it was a shock at the end to learn that she was pregnant (I'm not saying that her pregnancy should have been revealed earlier).
Heather, this was a well written piece. I nly had a problem with para 8 where I was a bit confused. I think yuo were trying to get the felling of her almost leaving her body as she calmed herself and tried I guess to not be present - also I assume a typo in the last sentenc of the para upset the flow of my reading.
She reviewed her decision but she didn't let us in at all to the reason for her mental state and decision to killherself it was more about the method. I think you could possibly have heightened the drama by revealing what mixture of emotions she was feeling leading her to this place. Which presumably had to do with the pregnancy.
But I loved the piece. Some great imagery was created with your descriptions and I really liked the tranis "speaking" to her.
Well done!
What a powerful story. I liked the way that Phoebe was becoming present to some of the small and joyous things of life, like the sun drying the grasses, even as she contemplated death. And then the dramatic about face as she leaps away.
And I love the ending. We know that Phoebe will overcome what she must and will never do that again.
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