Fargo

In Contrast of Light

Fargo wouldn't wander around much, he just watched, he watched the people deteriorating hour by hour. Lives faded as did the daylight, though the light was merely a dimly lit train car flooded with the pale white shine of a winter sky. It was odd to him, really, that he would suffer such a beautiful death, ironic really. The pearl setting over snow capped, cascading rock masses, setting horizons along the earth's limits. Clouds created the snow globe that they were engulfed in, the trap that would become a wedding-dressed casket. Death cupped her icy palms around the train, protecting them from the life that they should have lived.

Was this fate? Or a grand story to take home? Surely neither, it wasn't a misfortune nor something that holds the chances of escape. No, this was a death sentence, a beautiful order that the gavel has drummed into their minds, of course there are those who hope, say that everything will be fine. And here is a boy, knowing more than the mature women. He is a stowaway, knowing more than the diamonds and pearls and purples that sit around the train. Some are very unlucky, unlucky indeed. They ask for a window seat to watch the days pass until they return. Those seats are the coldest, the closest to the outside world... A harsh whispering, howling wind that sends ghostly voices against the sides of the train, and weaving through any cracks. And how the train did crack, as the air chilled, the walls became as chapped lips, and gave way to crevices.

Shards of chilled breath haunted the cars, and merely escaped from a few of the people. A breath out was nothing, the exhale of moisture dancing into the cloud what would show evidence of life. It was the inhaling that was so difficult. The air would slide down their throats, they had to become sword swallowers to force down the sharp edges of the rigid oxygen. The chill clung to the blue hands of the people, and beat their noses red. It was an abusive chill. Fargo knew this, he'd seen it before.

The air was not the only factor. They could drink nothing, it all froze - just as they would. They could not even cry, the heat from tears would so brutally sting their eyes it would become a reason for a suicidal urge. Infants wailed, and each choke would burn the insides of their necks, it would burn with ice. Not one baby would make it home, alive, that is.