Found, Lost, and Found Again

Twenty or thirty years ago the terminal would have been busy, an integral stop for all who passed by—a transportation hub that a town grew around. But those days were long gone: outdated by newer, faster, shinier trains, displaced by more important places. It didn’t happen in one shot; just slowly travelers dwindled, and people started leaving. In a town that had once seemed so full of life, now lay boarded up windows, overgrown yards, and a general sense of absence.

In truth, the town actually had quite a respectable population, it was just that everyone was so spread out between empty houses, apartments, and establishments. This was something that the the town mayor noticed, but hadn’t the slightest idea of a fix.

The boy was waiting in the terminal. It was rather decrepit an empty for such a large terminal. But there was just something nostalgic about it. Almost as if the entire place were sepia toned, a tainted-gold tint aura that everything in it seemed to exude. The boy noticed this, and thought of the busy, cool blue tones of large cities, he remembered the excitement but also the feeling of something missing. It was missing this sepia-toned aura, the feeling of a place which wasn’t just used, but was cared for as well.

It didn’t matter that the floors had cracks in them, or that the fans above probably generated more heat than dissipated. What mattered was that the young lady at the ticket-booth noticed the dog, and winked at the boy instead of throwing him out. As the boy walked away with his dog, the young lady wondered what the boy would be doing in twelve years. She smiled to herself as she threw the thought out of her head. Instead she thought: He’d be quite cute.

He was surprised and relieved. The bus was relatively empty, and most of the passengers had settled up in the front. The boy often pondered why adults always sat in the front, shying away from the back of the bus. In any case, to him, the back was peaceful–and on any other day, would have enjoyed the bumpy ride in the back, sitting straight and hoping the driver would speed through hilly areas; but alas, today they were tired, and so the boy sat with his legs crossed and leaned his head against the window. His dog rested its heavy head on the boys thigh, and the two fell quickly asleep.

A few seats down, a dangerous man sat brooding with intensity as dangerous men do. Only he, along with the bus driver had noticed the dog the boy had so desperately attempted to smuggle aboard. And as with most people the boy met, the dangerous man’s heart quickly softened when he saw the boy, for he felt a glimmer of hope when he saw the two. It had been years since he felt… good. No, not good in the normal sense, but good in the good and evil sense. He felt a goodness that he thought he had long since abandoned.

Before the bus had left the station fully, something had gotten into his eyes, or so he reasoned, but there sat a broken man, tearing gently into his own hands.

It was a rather rainy day: positively bleak, gray, and all-together not that nice. Somewhere not far from a faded green field sat a boy with his arm wrapped loosely around his dog. The two sat together searching for the hidden sun, setting slowly behind the clouds.

And then it was dark, and an absolutely ordinary day was done.