FIONA MCKAY
Journey Without a Map
Atocha
Ideally, you should know your destination in advance – difficult when the stations pass by at such speed that you sometimes don’t recognise them until after they have passed. And there is no map. This would all be so much easier with a map.
Gare du Nord
You watch a wedding unfold as you pass by. The bride is beautiful, as all brides are, and you admire the detail on her dress. There are chilled flutes of champagne, and lights bob and sparkle with a warming glow. The people seem familiar, and there you are, in a hat, attending your daughter’s marriage. It’s going too fast, and you didn’t press the bell, so you can’t get off. You’ve missed your daughter’s wedding before you reached the stop where you decide to have kids. You slump back in your seat, disappointment sweating out of you.
Unter den Linden
Stone buildings heave into sight, and you just know this is your stop. Ancient stone to go with the ancient knowledge you can’t wait to absorb. This is it; this is the place. Or is it? As you slow down, preparing to stop, you notice that the outskirts are shabby, and the people unhappy. Maybe it’s the wrong place, and you pause, indecisively – your case half-on, half-off the luggage rack – standing frozen in the aisle as the station whistles past. No matter. There are others.
Heuston
It’s a perfect scene, the land sloping upwards slightly, the bright green gashed with a brown square, a weeping tree you can’t identify bending tenderly over the spot. People are wearing black, and your throat constricts. You don’t want to stop here at all – if you keep moving, you won’t have to feel.
St Pancras
There is laughter mixed with chat, and the roaring clink of glasses in a busy pub. The people are young, but not too young. They are stylish but not overdressed. They shine with the kind of confidence you’ve always wanted but feel just a little scared of. You definitely want to get down, but at that moment, he turns around and sees her, and you can see it all too, read it across their faces, as his smile illuminates, her cheeks flush faintly pink. They were meant to be. You weren’t.
Grand Central
The baby is so tiny that it terrifies you, even from a distance. Two worried faces are bending over it, desperate to work out what to do, how to fix its cries. It looks difficult, but worthwhile. They look like a team.
Roma Termini
The people in the Day Room shuffle around, anxious to get where they’re going, not realising that their destination is nowhere. They have all forgotten something, and you can tell that the thing they’re searching for is memory. This isn’t your stop, you’re certain, and you want to go back, speed up, keep going, but everything is slowing and this seems to be the end of the line.
Fiona McKay lives beside the sea in Dublin, Ireland with her husband and daughter. She is a flash fiction writer and is also working on a novel. Writes with Writers’HQ. Words in various places, including: Reflex Fiction, Janus Literary, Scrawl Place, EllipsisZine, The Birdseed, Twin Pies, Bath Flash.
Tweets about writing at @fionaemckayryan