Colors

Smokey Memories

Rain and smoke sat next to me while I waited for my train to pull into the station. Cinders from my cigarette disappeared into the puddles that drowned my leather boots.

"Excuse me, this seat taken?"

A voice cut through the smokey wet mess in the air and plopped down next to me. A man who looked a bit younger than me, almost boyish.

"The name's Jack."

He put his hand out for me to shake but jerked it away when some of my Marlboro landed on his wrist.

"Not one for conversation, huh? Well that's understandable. I used to be like that."

I looked at Jack. His face was something I couldn't make out. His eyes barely made it through the smoke, but his smile passed through like it was nothing.

"So, what train are you waiting for?"

I answered back by puffing out smoke ring.

"Oh...well I guess where you're going really is your business. I'm on my way down to Atlanta to go see my sweetheart."

He reached into his brown leather pockets and pulled out a picture of him and the "sweetheart". She had short blonde hair that was tied to the side and green eyes that cut through the photo. Jack had a smile that matched the one he had right now.

I put my smoking hand on my knee.

"What's her name?" I asked.

"Angelica."

"That's a nice name. How'd you two meet?"

He turned to look at me and crossed his legs on our shared bench.

"Well, it was a day kind of like this except not so...gray. Her and I were both on our way to New York- I wanted a fresh start, she wanted to be an actress- anyways, we had a shared booth on the train and we started talking about what we planned on doing once we got to New York. She offered me a place to stay since I hadn't worked out my housing plan and then we just kind of happened."

There was a short silence as I reached into my coat pocket for another cigarette. Before I could light it the train pulled in and splashed my legs, letting out a loud scream from the wheels.

"Where're you headed miss?"

"Atlanta."