Homeward Heather

It wasn’t a fine bottle of whisky—no Japanese hand had touched it, nor was it a proper classic Irish Whiskey, though perhaps an Irishman had. It was cheap, unassuming, and perfectly suited for its purpose. How glad was I to have saved a bottle to the fingerbreadth of a glass, drinking the honey drink in my apartment—the cold concrete slab it was, though painted ablaze by the crackling hearth. My coiled throat found heat just the same, and soon the warm light turned a haze painted purple by slick guitar licks that wove their way into the fiber of my soul. The wind howled along to the tune, and me and the bottle huddled up underneath the blanket, watching old live’s.

Soon that very soul was strangled, not by cheap booze, but by the tug of a blaring alarm, the one which I found myself living more and more by—now it told me to shuffle off to the train, I was going homeward.

By instinct I reached for the black labeled bottle, my poison, but my fingers palmed, closed, and I commanded them to do the same to the concert on my desk instead, letting the curly-hatted heads rest a while. Some part of me knew the warmth of the drink wouldn’t follow me homeward.

Train stations are drawn out of time, out of reality really. A place people pace to in joy, run to in a minute rush. One they linger at like heavenly grounds as the face of their loved one stares back at them through damp glass. The warmth inside me allowed me to see such things.

The train groaned to a start, once it would have belched out steam to paint the blue sky in speckled clouds, chugging along what could have been German tracks. Though the monotone voice overhead announced it was not so—another delay. Now it ran on electricity, the black suspended eels that sparked as the metal bucket’s static hand slid over its snow covering. 

Blue, the snow flickered, making the pale landscape divine, turning it into the land of dreams, and so I began dreaming.

With more room in my economy, I could pay down the loan on my real estate faster, scrunch the better man out of the second loan, the rent. Maybe there would be room to buy a vacation home in Marbella to surprise the family—or perhaps a vineyard in rural France, or, let’s be real, any man’s dream: a bar. I dreamed ever romantically.

Someone was talking to me, but unfortunately for them, a fox appeared, like it was the most natural thing ever, and I guess it was. The drizzling snow worked in its favor, turning it arctic, and so the hunt was on. For mice to proudly show its family.

The conductor tapped my shoulder and I clasped my cringed face as I presented my ticket, which sent the poor fellow on his way.

I found myself flicking at the corner of my legal pad, and soon entertained a story—one about a girl, it was always about a girl, either one straying you off your path, or one reeling you in. Her face painted itself in words, I surrendered myself to the stranger that held a grasp on me, for how could I ever know a person fully? The unfair ease with which the words swirled onto the pad kept me focused. She slipped through my fingers, yet I kept writing. Every word I knew was just another way to circle around her, but she was always beyond me, just out of reach. Was I creating her, or was she the one breathing life into me?

Easing open, the doors hissed, and the stark winter cold crept and clambered onto what limbs it found. People huddled together with smiles as warm as their rose cheeks, and I couldn’t help but smile myself, though I had to quickly look away, I couldn’t let them know I was mad. Some bore skis, bags with a weekend’s worth of clothing, and all the love in their hearts. They kept easy conversation about things only they would know of, things worthy of light laughter.

A few stops later the snow blanketed thicker, painting tired roof tiles a seasonal white, weighing down the branches of willows and keeping people inside their warm homes.

At the station, past the double-century-old lodge, where people’s thoughts echoed through the still room—regretful thoughts of leaving—another curly head, one of motherly warmth, waited for me, so I ran.