Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Write in the SCIENCE FICTION genre (05/10/07)
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TITLE: "The Music Shop" | Previous Challenge Entry
By Frank Salerni
05/10/07 -
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I awoke somewhat groggy, with my forehead at rest pressing against the window glass of a fast moving train. The contrast of light and dark shadows flashed before my closed eyes as the sound of the tracks clattered in my ears. Then, sudden darkness for a time, and the absence of the noisy track woke me for a moment. We may have just exited a tunnel, not that it was really important, but I do remember glancing down at my hand to see if I was still holding on to my tickets. Relieved that I was, I closed my eyes and soon rested my head once again on the window.
Within minutes my eyes opened once again and I sat upright. To my surprise, the train was empty of its passengers.
“Curious?” I thought as I spun around in my set to view the back of the train car. Could I have possibly slept straight through till the end of the line? Why didn’t the conductor wake me and take my ticket? It seemed daylight a moment ago, why is it so dark outside now?
I started to get up to go look for answers when the squeal of steel against the tracks rang out. “We’re stopping!” I thought. We’re not in my hometown. It seemed to me that we are in the middle of nowhere. Never the less we were stopping, and I needed answers. I reached up into the overhead compartment and grabbed my bag. It wasn’t much, just an old duffel bag with the headstock of a very used acoustic guitar sticking out of the top, but it was all I needed.
We pulled into a small station. A light mist hugged the ground as I stepped off the train. A single street lamp illuminated the small station house. A tiny building with two windows, a door, a single bench on the boardwalk, and a “Closed” for business sign was all there was to greet me. I saw no one on the train, no one at the station, so I yelled “Hello?” with no response. The door to the train closed accompanied by a steam blast as I yelled again and hit the door with my fist. The antiquated mode of transportation pulled slowly away.
Swinging my bag around my shoulder, I observed my surroundings. To the West and East, train tracks that seemed endless. To the South, empty darkness. I took a few small steps till my feet were at the end of the boardwalk. I stared off into darkness before turning my head toward the northern landscape. Behind the station, hidden from view was a very small town with a handful of storefronts connected together. A single street separated the stores that had no street lamps or telephone poles, and if it was not for a dim light coming from a store window at the end of the left hand row, the town my have gone undiscovered.
The street was made of dirt like you’d expect to see in the old west, with a boardwalk at either side. As I walked down the row, and looked to my right, the names of the local businesses were on hand painted signs, eroded by time. Instead of what I would have expected to read on them like, “General Store,” or “Post Office,” they were all specialty shops. One read, “Costumes,” another, “War Memorabilia,” and so on.
It bothered me greatly that housing wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Who used the stores? Maybe it was nothing but a ghost town from years gone by, but then, why the light? Finally, I came to the place directly across from the dimly lighted store that guided my way. I paused for a moment before stepping off the boardwalk to cross the street.
In amazement I was looking at a very well stocked, and a neatly displayed window with a sign above the door that read, “The Music Shop.”
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