Ms. Barista and I catch a metro to what is supposedly the biggest library in Dury City. We don't talk once on the way, so I know for sure this girl seriously hates me, but I'm too focused on the commute to hate her back.
I though Dury was perfect, and I still love it and all, but they've cancelled two metros already and there's a real crowd gathering around us. In a city like Dury, cancelling a train is chaos. I've heard that before, known that before, but I'm only starting to understand it today. The barista girl, clearly a true Dury Citizen, keeps changing her location, keeping up with the traffic of people. I'm no stranger to what she's doing: She's one of those hawks who hunt for the most strategic positions for catching a train. I first thought this barista girl was crazy; now I know she is. She's pushing someone every second, fighting for the best spot, and it's stressing me out. She clearly knows this place like the back of her hand, but what about me? If I lose track of her, I'm screwed. Following someone around is stressful beyond comparison. I feel like a three-year-old who can't find her mum every damn time she disappears somewhere in the crowd.
Thankfully for me, I manage to keep up, and when the train pulls in, the barista girl and I are among the first to step onto the carriage. A wave of pride surges past me, and then it's drowned out by the people who are hungry to secure themselves seats on the trains. Before I know it, I'm standing in perhaps the worst position imaginable on the train, but am somehow able to see that barista girl sitting down peacefully by a window seat, staring off into the middle of nowhere.
As we get to the next few stops, more people exit the train than enter it. I manage to secure myself a place near one of the poles, so I can at least stop struggling to keep my balance. I decide to pull out my phone and check up on Monica, Lindsay and Kate.
They're all having a great time. I've seen their snaps. Somehow, Monica is on a date with some guy rather than working on the project, and Lindsay is in the same group as Kate and is out eating ice cream. I curse my fate, and decide that perhaps I should just be grateful the barista girl wasn't yelling at me anymore. I tell my parents about the lecture we had this morning, and scroll down instagram for a while. I see a picture of Monica on a train with someone I assume is her date.
And that's when I look around me and fine there's no-one on the train but the barista girl and I.
I quickly put my phone into my pocket, and rush towards her.
"Where's the library?" I yell. I feel my face flush with heat, and my hands turn colder by the second. We're lost. God knows how long we've been on this train.
The barista girl looks around. She stands up and walks towards a basket at the front of train, full of the brochures illustrating the trains routes. "There was a stop, the National Theater, we were supposed to get of there." She says.
I snatch the brochure she's holding in her hand, and open it up, before she yanks it back.
"What's your problem?"
"My problem?" I say. "Of course you don't see it. Why do you always bring some sort of bad luck along with you?"
"Excuse Me?"
"First, you spill my friends Affogado all over her, and then you doze off and get us lost somehow in a city you've grown up in your whole life."
"For God's sake! How have you concluded we're lost. You need to calm down, honestly..." She opens up the brochure, and starts reading the map. "We need to get off at Stonebrook"
"We're at Glasgow now. Are we even on the right train?" The barista girl doesn't reply. I grab another brochure from the basket. I look through it.
Glasgow isn't on the map.
"Glasgow isn't on this map." I say. "It's not there." I toss the brochure into the basket, and pull out another one. The barista girl does the same.
"Congratulations" I say. "You've messed something up again.
"What. Is. Your. Problem?" The barista girl says, her voice a syncopated whisper. This is the first time she's spoken like that , with so much emotion. She walks back to her seat. "You made me lose my job and you have the audacity to speak to me like that?" This time her voice is tremulous and cracks. "My family were barely living when I did work, and now?"
I don't know how to respond.
"Let's just get off at the next stop." I say. I've stopped yelling now, and my voice sounds calmer than before.
But when we approach the next stop, there's barely a train station to get off at. The next train station is just as barren. And the next. And the next.
One second I'm exhausted, the next I sit still, but the whole time the barista girl, Charlotte (I think that was her name) stares out of the window, almost emotionless.
I have decided that it would be best to take some time off to learn how to write a proper novel. That way, my writing will be of a higher quality and will have a more developed plot and more developed characters.
That said, I will only upload more chapters once I have written the entire story. Thanks :)
YOU ARE READING
Silent (The State of Silence, Book 1)
Fiksi Umum"You'd think human civilization would only progress and grow with time, but it seems that somehow we've just reached new troughs. We're back to rock bottom, and joining the resistance is the only way we can fix things." Kristine is a young woman liv...
