Just a bunch of kids that want you to die

[sovay]

I had a dream that I think was trying to be a folk opera. Maybe it was an allegory. A kind of nightmare Brigadoon: a queer woman driving home to her family in the American South finds herself instead in a town where it's 1963, where she meets a young trans man trying to get anywhere but here. The window of time opens only when the late-night train comes rattling through the station without stopping, because the town was unincorporated in the '70's but the right-of-way still carries freight traffic in 2020, so they kick around town and watch the timetables and talk about both the factual and the hoped-for future and try not to get bashed too badly and finally they wait in her truck to cross the tracks in the split second after the train's gone by, but one of the young man's popular tormentors pulls up with his girlfriend and hassles them trapped at the crossing as the train clangs past and then peels out first with a showy tire-squeal across the still-humming rails and disappears. Empty road in a swirl of settling dust lit only by headlights, the long black train wailing away into the night. Neither the time traveler nor the young man have any idea what just happened, if the window's closed now, where the bully and his girl ended up. And I don't know what happens to them, either, because I was awakened while the two of them were sitting together on top of a ridge watching the sun rise, trying to figure out if it they have a chance of counting down to the next train or if they're just stuck in this layer of time and if so maybe they should get out of town, assuming that hasn't stopped working, too. I don't see why it should have. As far as I can tell, they weren't in the Twilight Zone, just Tennessee or Alabama or Georgia. Either way, I want them to have been all right.

Comments

[desireearmfeldt]

That's a coherent enough story it seems like you could make a complete work of fiction out of it if you felt so inclined. :)

[selkie]

Yes, I agree with this. But do it over there where that salt is.

[sovay]

That's a coherent enough story it seems like you could make a complete work of fiction out of it if you felt so inclined.

I can't promise any time soon, but it may happen.

[selkie]

GAAAAH NO THANKS
I blame the scallop woods.

[sovay]

I blame the scallop woods.

WE GOT OUT.

[selkie]

I want to clarify I think you could write it and map some kind of ending! And I would read that! Just also gaaah.

[dewline]

This could be the start of a Twilight Zone story. For today's Twilight Zone.

[sovay]

For today's Twilight Zone.

I don't think the Twilight Zone ever goes away.

[gwynnega]

Maybe you can write the ending.

[sovay]

Maybe you can write the ending.

I might have to. I don't know that I want to leave them there.

[ashlyme]

I'd read this. You'll get them out.

[sovay]

I'd read this. You'll get them out.

Thank you.

[davidgillon]

I admire your dreams narrative continuity!

[sovay]

I admire your dreams narrative continuity!

My dreams are sometimes better at plotting than I am.

[lokifan]

Awesome and upsetting. Story, please :)

[sovay]

Awesome and upsetting. Story, please

I shall do my best.