Saturday, February 6, 2010

RUN RUN RUN

okay, I don't actually have a title for this... title in progress.



The light illuminated her face as she handed the conductor her ticket. It was the first time everyone on the train was noticing her. Her straight, brown, hair did its best to hide her bright red, swollen, utterly dried out eyes. Mascara-filled tear stains ran down her cheeks and her cracked lips bled from being chewed. The conductor could tell that she used to be pretty, but now was a time when she just couldn’t care anymore.
The conductor walked past her without a word, just a nod of his hat. This was her first time on a train and she was surprised that conductors indeed had hats and wore uniforms. She had always seen them dressed this way in movies, but figured times had moved on to when train conductors could dress casually. She had been wrong.
Growing up in suburbia, she liked to think that things were different from the norm. She liked to think that not everyone was a conformist and everywhere was a different place. She was aching for some place where at least the houses looked different from one another. Maybe a big city. Maybe a small town. Someplace different. She was aching to run away from everything she ever knew and start over.
She contemplated new names in her head. Something different. Something other than “Megan,” which was the unfortunate name she was stuck with. Something that wasn’t on the top ten babies’ names list. Something with originality. Something normal, yet different. Nothing to weird sounding, like “Apple” or “LaToya,” but nothing like “Ashley” or “Jessica.” She had always been fond of the name “Kaye” and had only ever met one person with that name. “Kaye” was edgy, yet classy, and could fit almost anyone, but no one ever used that name.
She needed a last name that would fit. “Carter?” “McKlain?” “Kaye McKlain” had a nice ring to it. That was who she was going to be from now on.
She would get a job in – wherever the hell she was headed to – and start a new life there. A life where no one knew her. A life with no expectations.
She had a cross country train ticket and she wasn’t going to let anyone stop her.

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