jack_babalon (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jack_babalon) wrote2010-02-27 11:18 pm
jack_babalon) wrote2010-02-27 11:18 pm
Entry tags:
Down on the Tracks
The railroad tracks, though abandoned and almost entirely consumed by a dense kudzu jungle, run with the pride of a rusted scar through the gentrified Steam District of Old Terminus. Flowing through the huddled brick factories recently gutted into a honeycomb of studio apartments, beneath tired gray bridges who shelter the invisible lost under a perpetual shrug, through a sea of wind restless brambles and littered with the occasional remains of a stolen car, the tracks have become a dead river - one long forgotten by the city that it once nourished from the ashes of hubris and war. However, since their vast length skirts the edge of memory itself, the tracks have become a graveyard to distant secrets and can lead, if one is not careful while traveling along them, to the shores of hidden worlds that lie outside of time's boundary.
It is from here that the great fleet of black iron ghost trains are launched to go roaring into the dreams of midnight America. Where once a year the crows and hawks meet at the edge of the tracks just off Gallows Town, to send their respective champions out to race each other across the tracks and back. Where runaway pets from the surrounding neighborhoods gather before beginning their long pilgrimage back into the wild. Where junkies can mainline a poisonous heaven in peace and graffiti artists can hone their skills before tagging the big time.
Where currently four teens in cheap suits and rubber horse masks surround a paunch bellied man dressed in an ill-fitting equestrian uniform. The teens, three girls and one boy judging by the curves and lack of, bare a variety of weapons. The girls wield a series of club sized pipe wrenches painted in splashes of gaudy pink and neon green. The boy carries a automatic pistol that he keeps leveled at the equestrian.
The equestrian is bent over, panting frantically and his outfit is drenched in sweat. He cannot catch his breath long enough to form a coherent sentence, so instead he pleads with them with a single raised palm. Though wearing fresh tears in their jackets, loosened black ties and muddied sneakers, the teens betray no exhaustion in the chase they delivered.
"Whuh-whuh-why?" the equestrian gasps straightening up and looking around frantically for help that is clearly not there.
None of the 'Horsemen' answer, maintaining the collective silence they have met the equestrian with since they first met. The equestrian doesn't remember much before the moment he has become inextricably attached to. Flashes of stepping out of his office in midtown. Running late for his flight to Miami for the Pearson conference. Stepping into a cab, barking his destination and only two blocks later realizing the horse masked man keeping the barrel of a pistol aimed at his belly. Before he could scream the driver, similarly disguised, stared back and clicked on the meter. When they arrived at a side street dead ending with a vacant lot and a derelict boxing gym he had already exhausted every conceivable question, threat and plea he could offer. The riches of his prodigious banking account, the fat wallet stuffed with untraceable 'fun funds' for after the conference, the promise of a reward befitting a man of his status within the corporation whose name surely everyone recognizes... all of it was met with the same mute indifference. When the cab was parked in the lot, the equestrian was led by the driver and the boy to a hole in the chain link fence, ordered to climb through he met the other two girls who ordered him, through a series of gestures and pokes of their wrenches, towards the outfit he now wore.
When he had finally changed, awkwardly and ashamed before their gaze, he was finally given a single word. Muffled through the rubber snout, one of the girl's with a squeaky voice befitting a cartoon mouse, shrieked - "Run!"
To emphasize this command the boy fired a single round between the boots the equestrian could barely squeeze his steps into.
The man took off and ran as far and as fast as he could. Despite being hobbled by the boots, sporadic bouts on the treadmill at the gym and the remnants of his Red Bull breakfast put some considerable distance between him and the four horsemen who stood in the receding distance. Waiting until he passed the burnt shell of a Pontiac Cutlass, before walking briskly in pursuit. The equestrian more than once tried to veer off the tracks towards an open street or trying to climb the buttress up one of the bridges back towards sanity. Each time a bullet ricocheted inches away from him - marksmen delivered by the advancing boy. Occasionally he would pass an encampment of homeless, some wrapped in blankets around a fuel can fire or staring at a dead television set propped on top of an overturned shopping cart. He tried beseeching each of these strangers for help. He tried thrusting cash into their dirty hands only to realize that he left his wallet back in his discarded pants. None of them said a word to him, sharing as spectators the vigil of silence his pursuers had enacted. At one point he tripped over the railing at a sudden bend and cut his knee open on a puddle of broken glass. The horsemen continued to walk briskly towards him and heart pounding and muttering curses to the very god he just begged to be delivered from, he limped off...
...as far and as long as he could before exhaustion drained the last reserves of adrenalin and he decided he could run no more.
"Jus-heh-jus' tell me whuy?" he pants the tears flooding his eyes.
The four teens exchange knowing looks and the boy with gun just shakes his head 'no'.
Was it the latest round of lay-offs he ordered to keep the stock holders happy and his bonus secured? Did he make an enemy somewhere, those indiscretions with Tom-in-Accounting's wife or Jeff who he thoroughly character assassinated three years back to get that one run higher view of the rat race below? Were these perhaps just homicidally bored children who discovered a drug more addictive than anything they could simply buy? Had he found himself somehow the sacrificial goat to some remote and alien god? Were they enacting some ancient ritual to Was it something he did or didn't do?
All of these were good questions and no doubt worthy of being asked, but nevertheless they would remain unanswered as one of the girls, the one who told him to run in fact, stepped up and delivered a perfect golf swing of her wrench to the equestrian's lower jaw, sending a spray of shattered teeth to rattle down his truncated scream. Then, one by one, the other two girls joined in. Hammering away at the equestrian, their blows delivered even long after he dropped, yet falling with an almost imperceptible precision to avoid battering the skull so as not to render him unconscious and allowing him to look up at the pointed barrel whose deliverance he would soon beg for.
Later, whether simply no longer amused by their whimpering prey or satisfied that their efforts had reached a predetermined result, the simply teens walked away, back from which they came, leaving the broken and crippled equestrian to meet the descending night along the quiet tracks.
It is from here that the great fleet of black iron ghost trains are launched to go roaring into the dreams of midnight America. Where once a year the crows and hawks meet at the edge of the tracks just off Gallows Town, to send their respective champions out to race each other across the tracks and back. Where runaway pets from the surrounding neighborhoods gather before beginning their long pilgrimage back into the wild. Where junkies can mainline a poisonous heaven in peace and graffiti artists can hone their skills before tagging the big time.
Where currently four teens in cheap suits and rubber horse masks surround a paunch bellied man dressed in an ill-fitting equestrian uniform. The teens, three girls and one boy judging by the curves and lack of, bare a variety of weapons. The girls wield a series of club sized pipe wrenches painted in splashes of gaudy pink and neon green. The boy carries a automatic pistol that he keeps leveled at the equestrian.
The equestrian is bent over, panting frantically and his outfit is drenched in sweat. He cannot catch his breath long enough to form a coherent sentence, so instead he pleads with them with a single raised palm. Though wearing fresh tears in their jackets, loosened black ties and muddied sneakers, the teens betray no exhaustion in the chase they delivered.
"Whuh-whuh-why?" the equestrian gasps straightening up and looking around frantically for help that is clearly not there.
None of the 'Horsemen' answer, maintaining the collective silence they have met the equestrian with since they first met. The equestrian doesn't remember much before the moment he has become inextricably attached to. Flashes of stepping out of his office in midtown. Running late for his flight to Miami for the Pearson conference. Stepping into a cab, barking his destination and only two blocks later realizing the horse masked man keeping the barrel of a pistol aimed at his belly. Before he could scream the driver, similarly disguised, stared back and clicked on the meter. When they arrived at a side street dead ending with a vacant lot and a derelict boxing gym he had already exhausted every conceivable question, threat and plea he could offer. The riches of his prodigious banking account, the fat wallet stuffed with untraceable 'fun funds' for after the conference, the promise of a reward befitting a man of his status within the corporation whose name surely everyone recognizes... all of it was met with the same mute indifference. When the cab was parked in the lot, the equestrian was led by the driver and the boy to a hole in the chain link fence, ordered to climb through he met the other two girls who ordered him, through a series of gestures and pokes of their wrenches, towards the outfit he now wore.
When he had finally changed, awkwardly and ashamed before their gaze, he was finally given a single word. Muffled through the rubber snout, one of the girl's with a squeaky voice befitting a cartoon mouse, shrieked - "Run!"
To emphasize this command the boy fired a single round between the boots the equestrian could barely squeeze his steps into.
The man took off and ran as far and as fast as he could. Despite being hobbled by the boots, sporadic bouts on the treadmill at the gym and the remnants of his Red Bull breakfast put some considerable distance between him and the four horsemen who stood in the receding distance. Waiting until he passed the burnt shell of a Pontiac Cutlass, before walking briskly in pursuit. The equestrian more than once tried to veer off the tracks towards an open street or trying to climb the buttress up one of the bridges back towards sanity. Each time a bullet ricocheted inches away from him - marksmen delivered by the advancing boy. Occasionally he would pass an encampment of homeless, some wrapped in blankets around a fuel can fire or staring at a dead television set propped on top of an overturned shopping cart. He tried beseeching each of these strangers for help. He tried thrusting cash into their dirty hands only to realize that he left his wallet back in his discarded pants. None of them said a word to him, sharing as spectators the vigil of silence his pursuers had enacted. At one point he tripped over the railing at a sudden bend and cut his knee open on a puddle of broken glass. The horsemen continued to walk briskly towards him and heart pounding and muttering curses to the very god he just begged to be delivered from, he limped off...
...as far and as long as he could before exhaustion drained the last reserves of adrenalin and he decided he could run no more.
"Jus-heh-jus' tell me whuy?" he pants the tears flooding his eyes.
The four teens exchange knowing looks and the boy with gun just shakes his head 'no'.
Was it the latest round of lay-offs he ordered to keep the stock holders happy and his bonus secured? Did he make an enemy somewhere, those indiscretions with Tom-in-Accounting's wife or Jeff who he thoroughly character assassinated three years back to get that one run higher view of the rat race below? Were these perhaps just homicidally bored children who discovered a drug more addictive than anything they could simply buy? Had he found himself somehow the sacrificial goat to some remote and alien god? Were they enacting some ancient ritual to Was it something he did or didn't do?
All of these were good questions and no doubt worthy of being asked, but nevertheless they would remain unanswered as one of the girls, the one who told him to run in fact, stepped up and delivered a perfect golf swing of her wrench to the equestrian's lower jaw, sending a spray of shattered teeth to rattle down his truncated scream. Then, one by one, the other two girls joined in. Hammering away at the equestrian, their blows delivered even long after he dropped, yet falling with an almost imperceptible precision to avoid battering the skull so as not to render him unconscious and allowing him to look up at the pointed barrel whose deliverance he would soon beg for.
Later, whether simply no longer amused by their whimpering prey or satisfied that their efforts had reached a predetermined result, the simply teens walked away, back from which they came, leaving the broken and crippled equestrian to meet the descending night along the quiet tracks.
no subject
it reminds me too much of contemporary urban nightmares.
that said, it is obviously an evocative piece.
no subject