Koi fish in my tiny little pond

Dreams...they're very fickle things. They're either amazingly detailed or just plain odd. I think this falls in both categories, strangely enough, but I didn't want to make it a full fledged story so...I improvised...and truncated...and left out a LOT. It gave me a headache just trying to resurrect the details from my sleep-fogged brain. Anyway, I dreamt it so I felt some obligation to share....get rid of it so it wouldn't keep worrying at me like a boo-boo on a child's knee.

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Morning dawns slowly in the southern half of the province as the sun makes its slow stride across the heavens. The landscape is blanketed with near silence; no chirping birds, no lowing of cattle or bleating of sheep. Nothing save for the occasional rusty hoots and chugs of machinery clearly past its prime.

Minutes drag by as the lonely sounds can be heard coming inexorably closer until a large object shadows the horizon. Two figures can be seen riding atop a sleek, ancient diesel engine as it speeds down an (until recently) unused stretch of dual rails.

“We’re going really fast!”

“What?” the driver yells to be heard above the din in the engine room below him.

“Fast! I said really fast!” his passenger shouts in reply.

The boy-man engineer nods emphatically. Orange earplugs bob in both ears as his head moves to respond. “Oh yeah, well Uncle and Grand-Uncle started scrubbin’ these rails ‘bout five years ago. Brother-boy clears weeds and carcasses from the track and they scrub.” He pats the newly painted skin of the bullet-shaped engine with obvious pride. Both engineer and passenger sit in silence for a time, enjoying the chill wind rushing through the open cockpit wheelroom as the sun’s rays bathe the countryside in orangish-silvery light.

“Ah found this beauty outside o’ the city. You saw it a ways back,” he continues in his thick, rhythmic dialect, cocking a calloused thumb behind him. His equally youthful-looking passenger is half-listening as his bright eyes dart to and fro in an effort to take in as much of this new world as possible.

He starts in surprise when he feels a strong poke in his side. “Ker, are you still a-listenin’?” The young man sits ramrod straight and waves his hands in denial.

“No, no! I heard everything you said, Millen. It’s just…” Ker’s voice trails off. “I’ve never been this far outside of the Compound before. I never knew any of this existed.”

Millen snorts in derision at Ker’s mention of his home. “Ain’t never understood why anyone would want ta live all closed in like chickens in a pen. What were yer elders thinkin’?”

The inquisitive light in Ker’s eyes is replaced by wistful contemplation at the comment. “I don’t know,” he admits. “They told us that there was nothing left out here…that we were safer all in one place, together. Saying there was strength in numbers.”

“Hmph, sounds like brain-sick nonsense to me. A man’s got ta have his space. That’s what my elders say,” Millen growls as he adjusts one of the valves nearest to his hand and tugs on the throttle. “Hang on, kid. Gonna give us a bit more gas.”

Ker gripped the rails on his perch in the wheelroom a little tighter at suggestion of his new friend. “Gas?” he inquires, his freckled nose wrinkling with curiousity.

The engineer flashes him a wolfish grin. “Speed, son! Speed!” Excited laughs fill the air as the sudden rush of acceleration nearly throws them both to the metal-plated floor.

Hours later, when both boys were fatigued from their journey and the mid-afternoon heat shimmered off the rails, they would swear they heard a song on the wind, one that possibly came from the train itself:

“Though years have left me bare
And my tracks they will have shunned
When no one is left to care
It matters not, for still I run.”