Platform 5

1. He is startled awake in total darkness, the surge and noise of the train he rides instantly familiar. In the dark tunnel, he feels the soreness of his shoulder where it has rested deadweight on the ledge of the sliding window while he slept. He has a feeling of disorientation for a second, allthough the act of awakening is uninterrupted and familiar, and he is alert. Vague memories of extreme drunkeness assail him, and he can taste and smell the odor of vomit. Sudden brightness floods the train as it exits the curving tunnel and emerges into the light beyond. The train tilts and screeches alarmingly, and slips the tracks, flying off the mountain pass trestles into the sky.

2. She awakens on the side of a grassy incline, supremely well rested, a feeling of contentment preceding her waking. The early sun upon her eyelids had blessed her now fleeting dream with it's warmth. She stretches, deeply enjoying the length of her spine, the lovely loosening of her joints. Sitting up, she runs her hands over her face, wipes the dew from her long hair, and gathers her shawl more tightly around her, surveying her surroundings. About a hundred yards west, a treeline banked river shimmering with the light of the morning, invites her with it's murmured suggestion. She stands slowly, stretching once more, offering herself to the day and the infinite sky, and makes her way down to the water's edge.

3. Along the banks of a river the cottonwoods grow in profusion, greedily soaking in the flow. They whisper amongst themselves, their leaves shimmering in the gentle wind, their heads nodding and bowing to eachother, courtiers of the bright morning. The deer meander grazing. Deeper into the cooling shade, a man sits perfectly still upon a a large mossy boulder. His eyes are closed, his hands rest open upon his thighs. There is no crease to his brow, no stress to the grace and strength of his posture. The image of ocean waves approaching and receding play in his mind's open eye.

4. The dark blue, the neverending, the stars wheeling slowly. The tree a true giant, it's stature windblown and rugged. The dark plain grasses whitely dip and sway, the shadow of the wind ripples outward in all directions. Milleneum, minutiae.

5. Once a kingdom (now long covered in sands and time) had grown prosperous around the site of a natural wonder; it's sacred immensity defined as the sight of L'Alta Primera explained by it's very existence. When Wormwood flew through the heavens, the culture of Absinthe had come, Schweitzertee. Poured at the feet of the noble as offerings to the fears of moonless nights, the doors all opened gaping black and wide, incanting an invitation from the hidden to fall fast asleep. Down there the air was wet and stalgmites held candles backed by polished brass circles. The power of light was exalted within the bright truth: that darkness had never demonstrably been able to extinguish any flame unaided.

6."Oh honey, I used to stop a CLOCK!'" says an enormously fecund woman raucously, rolling by the bench where she sat; the woman's pale-by-comparison companion nodding vaguely in response. He is Jack Sprat thin, with a walk reminiscent of bent and brittle branches, and eyeless with the glare blindingly flashing upon his small wire glasses. The ripe smell of cocktail hour wafts in their wake. 'Hourglass', she thinks to herself, and then, considers for a moment all clocks stopping sweetly. She sits on the concrete bench, waiting for the train, terribly tired, body aching from a long day.Breathing in the smell of the underground, the dark city grit somehow seems even more dirty in the flourescent light, humming in their run of naked tubes along yellow ceramic brick walls. Against one of the columns, a very red faced man reclines, dressed in rags, his scarecrow straw hair low on his protruding brow, his mouth moving toothlessly, drooling. His blackened hands are palsied and twitching. He coughs wetly, his small eyes watering. She looks away. The train comes on a wave of metal roar. The human hive undulates accordingly towards the tracks.

7. There was hunger and privation, the leaders corrupt and self indulgent. Beauty had been forgotten as a force of Nature, equal to the winds, the earth, the water and fire. It had been eons since the ancestral guardians had made any appearance at all, and what was left of religious ceremony had been reduced to little more than theater. Drought and it's attendant disease had come. Death was imminent in the near future, having moved from it's place of mystery into the realm of certain threat. The people wailed, the smoke rose, bodies rotted in the open air. The wise went feral. Though the survivors knew not the meaning, they heard the call and took heed, running, when out of the sky sounded, "Aaaaaaalll Aboaaaarrrrrrrd!"

8.Floating above the battleground, free at last, the slave-turned-soldier turned and saw a silver serpent running on 2 black lines stretching endlessly upward. He was unafraid.

9.The mill wheel turns, water slicing off of every edge, shining in the afternoon sun. In the distance are snow capped mountains, the foreground, a Spring valley bursting with wild flowers. His wife turns to look at him, smiling, a baby in her arms, wrapped in a woven blanket. The child's tiny linen cap ties trailing over her forearm. He can hear his other children laughing with the river's song. A strange whistling sound pierces the air in the distance. Their eyes meet and hold.

10.The haze of a hungover morning: ashtrays overflowing, sweat already sticking her naked arm to the side of her face where she lay. A thickness coats her tongue. She sits up into the reeling world, feeling it's rush and slant. A chipped vanity mirror crookedly leans on a dingy dresser in the scant light of the tenement window. She holds her head, curling over until it nearly touches her kness. and begins to cry deeply, silently. The walls begin to shake. She begins to howl. Outside, the train roars past.

11.She awakens on the side of a grassy incline,supremely well rested. A man sits perfectly still, breathing in deeply, his hands resting palms up on his thighs. The stars wheel forever in a deep blue sky above a giant tree. A kingdom grows prosperous in it's shade.