Darren’s Revelation
“So that’s it then? You’re just going to throw us off the train?!” Darren rolled his eyes in mock disgust. “How unoriginal, and-if I may-so out of character for you. It’s almost pathetic!”
Continue with “Strangers on a Train – Part 7”
The Funeral
My eyes are closed. I don’t remember closing them. The air around me feels different: cold and sterile. There’s a smell in the air I can’t identify; not at first, anyway. Then I recognize it. It’s the smell of hopelessness. A wafting odor that exists at the threshold of death. A symphony of smells that srceams, gunshots, explosions, and the like would be sounds for the ears. They bring no hope. When I open my eyes I know where I am before the heavy fog blanketing my vision even clears up enough for me to see.
Continue with “Strangers on a Train – Part 6”
Brewing Trouble
Reality can strike like an out-of-control shopping cart loaded down with bricks and grinding on the hinge of one bad wheel, locked on a collision course with your feeble body. There is nothing you can do to avoid it. You step out of its path to find yourself in front of it again. It can leave you breathless. It can leave you happy and laughing; it can leave you curled in a ball behind bruised knee caps crying into bloody palms. Or, in my case, it can leave you screaming for dear life; naked as the rainy day you were born, on top of the curved metal roof of a train car traveling sixty-five miles per hour down a pair of narrow moonlit tracks in a humid summer night.
Continue with “Strangers on a Train – Part 5”
Part 4 – Guy & Niel
“Taylor…you in there?” came a soft, concerned voice from outside the bathroom door.
I looked up from where I sat in an emotionally-wrecked heap on the floor. I don’t know how long I’d been in the bathroom; or how long ago I had even stopped crying. I recognized the voice instantly though as the young porter boy named Jake. He knocked lightly on the door again. “Dude, I saw you go in there like two hours ago. I’ll open the door myself if you don’t open it.”
Continue with “Strangers on a Train – Part 4”
Darren
So there he was. All the six feet; jaw dropping; drool inducing; perfectly toned; icy blue-eyed; adonis looking essence of him. I watched him grab a bag of Skittles from somewhere above the door-his luggage most likely-and stare at me. His eyes were the most amazing color of blue I had ever seen. From somewhere in the vacuum that suddenly existed between my ears and my brain, I heard the sound waves of a voice. Echoed words telling or asking me something. My name. He was asking for my name and telling me his. I had to focus. He waved his hand and my brain regained consciousness.
Continue with “Strangers on a Train – Part 3”
The Porter Boy
Chaos. Pure, utter chaos. Apparently it’s a universal constant. A force that drives the stars, planets; the very matter of existence. Well, one thing is certain. It was the force driving my positive and peaceful mood right out the metaphorical window. I clenched my teeth and kept my fist balled so tightly as I squeezed and pushed and stumbled through the enclave of talking, screaming, laughing, crying, brainless, senseless hordes of mingling people crowding the platform and the train!
Continue with “Strangers on a Train – Part 2”
Leaving Home
It was happening again. A night repeating itself over again. A night that was so real yet still beyond reality. A warm, tepid night in some late summer. I wake up from the uneasy sleep I had fallen into in my own bed and find myself tangled in bleached white sheets. The humid darkness engulfing my surroundings is broken for a few brief and heart stopping seconds by a buzzing red light. It appears again and again every few moments. I’m in a hotel room, I realize… And I’m not alone.
Continue with “Strangers On a Train – Part 1”
I live in my house by the sea. I have lived there since I was eight. My grandfather took me in and gave me the love and support I needed after my parents died. I was shy and timid. I always have been. Eventually, I grew up. I became six-six and weighed 250 pounds. I grew fur all over my chest and belly, the same golden color as on my head. But I was always easier, more comfortable, working in the garden or cooking in the kitchen.
My name is Sam. I’m a firefighter. As the city was in the grips of an arsonist, I found my destiny. I wasn’t looking for it, but I don’t think anyone ever is. I knew I was gay, really understood what it meant, when I was thirteen. I remember looking through the big holiday catalogs when I was younger than that, looking for toys and finding the men’s underwear section and staring, enjoying what I saw. I didn’t understand what I felt though. But when I was thirteen, it all changed.
I was staring out at the wide expanse of the Cascade Mountains as I piloted over them. I worked for one of the airlines, based in Seattle. I usually flew small, 70-seat commuter aircraft, but was certified to fly all the way up to a 737. I had spent almost every waking moment from the time I was 12 learning how to fly. I loved the freedom and thrill of soaring through the air. I’m one of the few people who didn’t have to enter the military to get a commercial pilot’s license.