Train - Fiction

It started with a train so it seems only fitting that it ends in one too. It has been twenty years since the accident and I haven't been back to the island since. But now as I sit on the hard wooden bench of the train as it glides over the water, I almost regret not facing this earlier. Memories are fleeting and quick but as we come closer to our destination my brain starts to remember. Like how the wind first felt on my face when I came here, a mere 13 year-old girl looking for another home. The way the wind tasted sharply of salt and smoke on my lips and the sunlight danced off the water, casting uneven shadows along the restless waves. And how, this memory stung slightly more then all the rest like salt in a half open wound, how the bright blue of the ocean met evenly with his eyes. I sat there and re-imagined the first time I met him; lounging in the corner of the train, his head turned slightly out the window to watch the water, or whatever had caught his eye at the time. I remembered how the wind had ruffled his hair, sending the golden locks in every misplaced fashion. He had worn a white shirt that day, half buttoned up only to reveal the slightly tan and toned skin underneath. But it wasn't the shirt, the sunshine of his hair or even the deep water blue of his eyes. It was the look that struck me. The look of serenity in his face, relaxed and smooth as if etched into marble thousands of years ago. I almost began to smile at the memory in spite of myself but time was cruel and the images faded away, leaving me struggling with feelings that I have, until recently, ignored for twenty years. But this was why I was coming back, to face the past that had come back to haunt me. I shook my head, dissatisfied about how morbid my thoughts had become and I twisted in my seat, maneuvering my lame hand behind me. I stared out of the open window to the upcoming island on the horizon; the early morning mist was gently beginning to pull apart and the little bit of visible sun gleamed down. Flashes of rubies, emeralds and sapphires glinted off the rocky hillside between the castles of sand and sea. Each house and state shining like jewels in the misty morning, mismatched along the mountain like antique mugs in grandmothers kitchen cupboard