Fallen Ash

Chapter Three: Ash

Having checked once, twice, and then a third time, that the station was open to the public as normal, despite the damage that had been inflicted on the surrounding area, Austin decided that, as soon as he had a day off, he would go and see it for himself. The quasar-bright intensity of that eruption from the sky, evocative of an alien abduction, remained fixed in his mind. He had to keep reminding himself it had been real, and he had witnessed it all himself.

He was still bitter every time he slipped into the navy blue peacoat he had been wearing to offset the approaching winter. Each time he grimaced into the standing mirror which hung on his bedroom door, that sense of loss was reinvigorated, like his most precious memories were the thread holding the seams of the parka together. 

He was still angry, but mostly defeated. It had been a long, grueling five days. Each morning when he stepped into the coffee shop, he scrambled for the morning paper to check if there were any further updates, but the vandalism case ran out of airtime immediately. Apart from being a footnote in the paper the following day, nothing came of it.

So, the memory dimmed - became unreliable. If there was nothing in the papers, and no one was talking about it, then it surely hadn't been as dramatic as he remembered.

He needed to see the aftermath for himself.

He was forced to stand on the train for the majority of the journey, perched awkwardly in the gangway which rocked so much it made him feel sick. Despite being midweek, the train was crowded with people heading in the same direction as him, and the air was stifling - hot with the crush of bodies and overflowing with idle chatter. He began to regret his decision, even when he narrowly managed to cinch a seat for the last ten minutes of the journey before he had to navigate his way out into the open air. 

He was experiencing sensory overload. It was strange. He had loved living in a populated area; spent his weeknights in cramped concert halls, with someone else's breath on his neck as he watched bands play. Gradually, over the last few months, his tolerance for being physically close to others had dwindled away to nothing. Relief flooded him as he stepped out onto the platform, a little bit too quickly, and saw that he was one of a very small number who had alighted the train. Even on this tiny, narrow platform, he had space to breathe. 

Austin steadied his breathing, slipping his arms into to the straps of his backpack, and waited for the train to pull away. 

The platform was an island between two tracks, so he only had to walk a few steps to face the other line. Unconsciously pulling himself up onto the balls of his feet so he could see clearly over the chain link fence, the scar across the landscape running tandem with the tracks came into view almost instantly. Punctuated with black welts from where the blazes had been sparked, it ran off into the distance, as wide as he was tall. If he walked further down and crossed the tracks, he might be able to get closer, but as he descended the ramp, he saw the tell-tale sign of police tape fluttering in the wind. 

He hesitated. Although the tape was there, he didn't see any police officers, and if there were, they surely wouldn't blame him for being curious. It was part of the human condition, after all. 

Before the moorland crept in and completely engulfed the landscape, there was a meandering path in the direction of the village, which soon diverged in the direction of his grandparent's house, but not before giving him an opportunity to cross over the tracks. The stone bridge, which was peppered with graffiti all the way up the stairwell, took ramblers over the railroad to the other side, and was a vain attempt to beautify the mass of overhead lines and hot rolled steel. It was a popular destination for train enthusiasts, who set up cameras along the cramped walkway to take photographs.