Still Life

The train station is empty. Litter is on the floor, wrappers barely moving in the breeze. Chairs cooling, devoid of bodily warmth, abandoned. A child has forgotten a doll, clothed in pale pink clothing, made of porcelain, with dark brown curls, left on its side by the platform. The air is still, and growing heavier, gathering dust, like air in a tomb. There seemed to have been no hurry in the last departure, no overturned chair or apparent chaos, no, not hurry, rather forgetfulness. A book is opened to the fifteenth page, alone, its pages a stranger to the breeze. It seemed its owner had set it down to gather their things for leaving, and not remembering the book had been set down, the story barely begun. The forlorn pink doll still stares blankly out of its glassy eyes, and under a slightly askew chair lies a solitary wayward shoe, not big enough to be an adult’s. On one of the benches there sits a neatly wrapped triangular slice of cake, something a grandmother would save, its edge barely peeking out of the folds of the white polka dotted red napkin enveloping it. A flower had rolled onto the platform, dancing in the wind, perhaps picked y a passenger or brought there by the wind, a daisy, its white petals playing with the sunlight on the station floor. The shadows slip and slide on the walls, and darkened corners, as if throwing of shackles of shame that human eyes had brought, and in their freedom dancing in the absence of light. There is in a way life, but there is no sound, and the air grows heavier still. The world seems to have forgotten this place, leaving it on pause, and time takes a rest here. Above, the coal black claw of engine smoke still rips a hole through the sky, a tear in the heavens. The sound of the train, and it movement, has long since gone but the smoke remains, a dark reminder of purpose and the passage of events in a place of timelessness. The stillness of the moment fits the place like a perfect glove, a better skin than the bustle of activity. Desertedness suits the station, and while deserted it seems to peacefully watching the sky, going from light to dark and dark to light. Dawn and dusk. Anything that would’ve disturbed the quiet is long since gone, the only memory of it lies in a lonely bee on the floor, long since dead lying in the darkness. There is no light, there is no time, there is no sound. It is perfect.


An attempt at a written still life. Or it could be taken as a metaphor for death, as I now realize. Enjoy.