Some days you wonder how you ended up in that exact spot you're sitting in that very moment. What choices led you there, what friends you had to make, what enemies. You live in a labyrinth that's hazy with no clear finish line. Sure, you have dreams and places you want to go, but who was stopping that small decision, that tiniest step, to completely change the course of your existence. It was a simple fait; take each day as they come they say. There is no planning the game of life. So keep on going, keep stumbling by as the rest watch. Have you won or have you lost? Only those who watch from the outskirts can really decide.
Hazy windows and velvet chairs. The shouts of the train vibrating off the carpeted floor. Rose had never been on a train, and it was obvious as she gripped the edge of the table as her ticket slipped across it. Auburn wood was smooth against her fingertips. She would sigh as she collected herself, still getting used to the jittering movements.
You would assume someone who lived so close to a train station would be fully knowledgeable to each one that passed. Though Rose wasn't the type to visit new cities and breath new air. Not when everything she needed was at home. Except of course, a job. Opening the slip of paper she travelled with, she read over the job description one more time. Seamstress. It was her dream after all, to form garments that were held by elegance like royalty. But there was no royalty in Small Heath, Birmingham. Not any that Rose knew at least.
"Any refreshments Madam?" Rose perked her head up to the stewardess dressed smartly at the door to her cabin.
"Tea please," she said.
The man entered the small cabin with his trolly of assortments: tea of different kinds, sugar, whiskey and small snacks that wouldn't even satisfy children. He poured her the drink and displayed it on the table in front of her, Rose nodding a thanks.
"What takes you to Birmingham Miss? A nice lady like yourself doesn't want to be going there," the man timidly waited by the door.
"A new job actually. And what's so bad about going to Birmingham?" She chuckled lightly.
Scratching the back of his neck, the man held back his words. He was older than her, his hair beginning grey and wrinkles were collected by his eyes.
"Ya don't know about what resides there?" He began to look concerned as Rose's innocent smile only widened.
"What exactly resides there?" She put emphasis on her words almost teasingly, not understanding what she was missing.
"Not nice people, Miss?"
"Martin," she said "well, whatever not so nice people that reside there, I'll sure be avoiding them."
She had a smile that could warm the coldest winters. Eyes so dark they showed no colour. And when she gave the man a look to leave her be, he was almost in too much of a trance to leave. But he did, her to peer out the window at the city coming closer into view.
Because no, she did not have a warning for what the city entailed, what hid behind the industrialized brick walls and dark grey smoke. Perhaps it was the curiosity, but she only felt more excited to step off the train and to her new place of residence. To see what that man was so scared about, why he looked at her like her father did when she wanted to go to the local village for the first time alone. Rose was a sheltered child, but that never stopped her adventure. Running through the fields, taking out her horse in the early hours just to see the sun rise.
She was a loner. The bird that flew on it's own. The cloud that drifted the sky when all the others cleared for summer. She was unaffected by the people who walked by her cabin, wondering why a young woman travelled alone. The silence was comforting when it was filled with background. Sounds of the train, the hushed tones of the cabins either side of her, her own thoughts accumulating to picture what this new location would be like.
Would it be like the man said? Dangerous, sending her back to her farm to mother and father. Or would it be thrilling? Able to spill into her letters back home, ink splattering as she rushed to write every last detail. Would she meet a man to completely woe her? A man like the ones she would read about.
But as she stepped off the train onto the platform for Small Heath, she didn't know if it would be possible. As the train moved on, deserting her where she stood, wind blowing her brown hair, she stared off into the growing factories and workers bustling by, trying not to cough as smoke entered her lungs. Into the great wide open. Although not wide at all, claustrophobic instead.
How her life had changed within that very second. It would no longer be the same.
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Writers note:
I started writing this a year ago, finished it, but couldn't decide what to do with it. So here it is.