Railroad to Nowhere

[words_n_coffee]

Color by COLOURlovers

Now, I am working on a story project, and the above is part of one of the objects, or items in the story.

Below is a short drabble of one of the story's characters, that just kinda walked into the story today.

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Joe settled for his third night, wrapped in real sheets, a real quilt, and having real food in his stomach. he had real memories floating up, of a big house and a generous family, of that last summer, where he felt so grown up because he dove, and swam from the big people's end of the pool. Like an otter. He counted pennies and searched the internet and played poker with his grampa--who for the first year played pennies and quarters with him.
He was not seven anymore, he was eight, and he could sit down and read and run off to visit Aunt Tori and play real poker with money not candy with his Grampa Alan.

That summer was so long ago, and now Joe settled down and saw the safety lanterns and a candle flickering, and the ornate deep greys and reds and of the train berth they were in, some faded cream and gold leather seats across from the booth, from his vantage point tucked into safe, soft quilts. He was a man, almost he knew that, and he hadn't been a boy in years.
For the first time, the grip on his trusty knife was relaxed.
His mother came by him, and took it gently from his hand, gave him a cup with water, and sat across him. She had clean clothes, and her dirty yellow hair almost looked golden in this light.
He gulped.
She untwisted her hair, and curled up with a thin blanket and a sheet, too. the berth's benches was quite enough of a bed, and very comfortable.
He said,slightly whispering,
"Mom, you look pretty, and mom...is this home?"

Marie Delfino hadn't wanted children, well, she just didn't. Her parents weren't bad, good, maybe just there. They had kept them fed, clothed and sheltered, and taken them on weeklong trips to relatives in slightly different cities. Mom had a slight flare up ot bad temper now and the, and dad had gone for long weekends ever so often. She hadn't liked crowing around with seven brothers and sisters.
She looked at the young man who looked too much like her not to claim him, but of course, he was her father's brother's very youngest son.
Joe Delfino called her mom because that is what she was, in a way, of a sort, and it had worked out, this child was almost seventeen, and after a decade on the road, after maybe around half that time barely living, and half that time being in an almost okay situation...

"Thanks, Joe, and I don't know."

Somebody had walked by them. She was slender, with sharp young features, and what Marie though looked like some Victorian outfit on, except for the practical jeans on, and she leaned towards both of them.

"You are in a town called Esperanza, which means hope."

"Ma'am, where is this train going?"

"Well it is the railroad going nowhere."

Then she gave them a sealed bottle of water, and a little basket of snacks.

A few lanterns and what little candlelight was snuffed out and she smiled in the near dark,
"Goodnight, Joe, and Marie."

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This is a rough draft, but there it is.
(I just cleared a little error up...)
"copyright Kay Dawson, 2011"