The next topic is It’s a dirty job.
RICHARD
Railroad reflection
The mournful sounds of train horns filled the frigid air.
Blowing into my cupped hands had little effect on my numb fingers, and I longed for the warmth of a friendly flame and woollen mittens.
This was the reality of the hobo’s life.
Cold, unforgiving, and distinctly lacking the romance of the open road.
The winter sun, slowly dipped in the Western sky, glinting from the steel rails, bestowing a lustrous sheen of glowing golden light;
Buttery tramlines, leading my gaze towards the distant, unknown horizon:
My destination on the next passing outbound train.
The traveller’s dream; the vagrant’s curse
SERENDIPIDY
I found the photograph in his wallet: A happy, smiling child. His daughter.
It was old now, cracked and faded with time, but still he’d kept it, all these years.
And now, he lay dead at my feet; the knife in my hand, slick with his blood.
He deserved it.
And that’s all I have to say on the matter. You don’t need to know the details, you only need to know that he had it coming.
I trace the little girl’s smile with my bloody finger.
I was happy once.
I looked down at his lifeless form, “Goodbye, dad”.
TOM
VAST
During my undergrad degree in Photography our inter-circle of A-students got the university to give us a van for a road- trip to the Grand Canyon. This prompted a new university policy of no vans for field-trips. Proud of that legacy, I am. The Canyon is number two on the national go-to destination for an American youth, just behind the Happiest Place On Earth. Not your fine art major venue. But the Canyon fine arts written large. As hard as I tried my photos never captured the feel of the Canyon. In a word it is the soul of Vast.
LIZZIE
It was a trying endeavor. A man sitting on a beam, working up high. No ropes, an emptiness below him. Just sitting there and hammering away. But she took that photograph, plus the one with the buildings. Her father had told her that those two represented the company’s prestige. A man dangling, hammering away for a pittance, building the company’s prestige. The pride of the family. When her father died, she took those photographs and burned them. Yes, she got rid of the company’s prestige, and she got rid of her family. It was a trying endeavor. Freedom’s never easy.
NORVAL JOE
The woman struggled, trying to escape from the thorn bush. Sabrina took out her phone and took a photograph of the woman’s face.
“What are you doing?” Billbert asked.
“Evidence,” Sabrina said, putting her phone away. “Let’s get out of here before she gets out of the bush.”
They joined hands and lifted off in the buttery yellow light of morning, flying north across the Eel River delta and the South Humboldt Bay before landing just outside the Eureka city limits.
Sabrina scowled. “Why are we stopping here?”
Linoliamanda started walking. “That’s okay. My house is just up the road.”
PLANET Z
Back in the day, there was a streetcar on Main Street.
From City Hall to the College.
Along the way, there was the factory, the hospital, and the grocer’s.
The town got bigger, the streets got wider, and the streetcar tracks were torn up.
I collect postcards of the old days, women in big dresses and men in their top hats.
Mounted and framed at the old-timey bar by City Hall.
They were going to build it out of a pair of streetcars, but they weren’t big enough.
A toy streetcar goes around on a track near the ceiling, though.