SHORT STORY: LEAVE

I haven’t written anything in forever. So sorry that this is Not That  Great™.

Jaxon had disappeared into the kitchen to mourn the death of his dishwasher.

It’d been a good dishwasher too. Served its purpose. Lived a long life. All that crap. I hoped that he’d get a new one quickly though, unless he wants to be doing all the dishes every night after closing up the pub. Though the town’s small. So he’d easily be able to get away with doing that.
– I leaned up against the bar ledge, closing my eyes and appreciating the breeze that blew through the open door. Jaxon always called me up if something broke. Somehow I’d become the pub’s unofficial handyman. Probably didn’t help that I had taken up an apprenticeship at the local mechanic’s. Or should I say only mechanic…
– “I need to get out of here,” I groaned. This small town was suffocating. Same routine, same people, same day, same everything. Repeated and repeated over and over again until the end of time. I groaned again.
– “You could just go,” a voice replied. I jumped, startled at the new noise before I turned around to see a smile, a slight tip of a chin positioned upwards. An almost knowing glint in oceanic eyes. With something distinctly… foreign about her.
– “Can’t,” I said. “My life’s here. Family, friends – I can’t leave them behind.”
– “Why not? Go out, start a new life. Go somewhere. Do something. Be anyone you want to be.”
– “How ‘bout I shout you a drink?”
– “You’re not the bartender?”
– “Definitely not. I know shit about it booze apart from how much will make me piss drunk.”

She walked along the train track rails, her balance slightly off this late into the night.
– “You still never have told me where you’re from,” I prompted her.
– “Nowhere,” she murmured, eyes closed and face tilted upwards. Like a silent prayer towards the stars.
– “You were born somewhere though.”
– “I was. Doesn’t mean that I stayed there though. Doesn’t mean that I belonged there.”
– She stretched out her arms wide. Almost like she was a chick as she stumbled across the railings. Like a small bird trying to get its wings off the ground, still so unsure of itself. She fell off to the side though, her dress covered in dirt as a result. I laughed though at her, and reached out a hand to help her up. Yet she knocked it away, instead to turn her face away. “You could come with me,” she whispered. Her words carried faintly in the night air.
– I chuckled, “I’ve already told you. I have to stay here.”
– “You don’t belong here,” she retorted, her eyes lacking that spark that they once shone with during our first moments together.
– I reached out my hand again to pull her up and into an embrace.
– “Maybe I don’t. But you don’t seem much happier than me, do you?”

She waved good-bye, stepping onto the train. The doors closed, with that creaky clack of them shutting as what was the sign of the train’s readiness to departure. She disappeared further into the carriage, and I watched it slowly leave. The screeching of the metal on metal consumed everyone else.

There went the train. Able to at least leave this place for a while.

Twitter 🕷
TikTok  🖤
YouTube 🎬 
Podcast 🎧

Author: thespookyredhead

Come for the pop culture. Stay for the bad grammar. View all posts by thespookyredhead