the station

Ian wrote a story. I thought I could make it better. I enjoyed writing this even if it isn't mine. Enjoy.

The Station

The foreigner stepped off the bus and inhaled the intermingling of diesel fumes and feces deeply and lustfully. He’d been gone a long time. Nostalgia had long since set in. He’d forgotten the petty horrors of human indignity he’d been witness to so long ago. The peasants wore the refuse of sexual tourists, arrogant gawkers and naïve would-be saints sent to educate them. They chanted and prayed and sang out to Jesus through a ceaseless mantra that belied the weariness the desert sun beat upon them all.

Ten-kwacha Ten-kwacha Ten-kwacha Ten-kwacha Ten-kwacha Ten-kwacha Ten-kwacha

The prayer only cost ten kwacha. What a deal. What a steal!

Hunks of rusted metal held together by wire, tape, glue and burnt cow dung pulled up to their respective stalls: snapping, coughing and growling for want of better days. Hundreds of strangers huddled together carrying sacks of clothes, food and children madly vied for a spot on the next transport home. The ticket-masters were busy with their receipt books arguing with fools who would try to bargain a rate with them. Young boys crowded up against bus windows holding up sweets, soda and China-shop goods. They said nothing, glanced off to nowhere in particular and waited for any blessed kwacha that would come their way. The foreigner smiled. His kind did not live like this. This change of scenery was blessed excitement: strange and new. To him and his nostalgic derangements this was how life was supposed to be lived. The people were everywhere. They put their hands upon each other as they spoke. The people, not their machines, shone brightly in the mid-day sun of the market square. A little girl passed by and he smiled again. The little girl was beautiful, young and very afraid. Her eyes were fixed to the ground as she shuffled along hiding herself as best as one could, walking through a crowded market. She wore a thin cotton sari with a dull blue pattern and a scarf holding up her hair. Barefoot, she wove a path serpentine avoiding the obstacles that strange, belligerent men were. She took note of the foreigner and dismissed him quickly. His kind never stayed in this place for too long. He was on a grandiose mission of pleasure and this world, her world wasn't real for him. He was an oddity to be sure, shielded by the comforts and demands of his first-world life. She knew of men like him. Girls with fantasies of leaving this place, bad girls without a care in the world--they told stories. She didn't care for stories now. She was on an errand of heartache and did not have the time or strength to be trifled with.

She left behind the chaos of the market without a second thought. It was quiet in the alley and the shade had cooled the clay her feet trod upon. There was only the refuse of so many living so close together and a boy minding a grass basket full of boiled groundnuts.

“Is it the police station?” and she pointed down the way.
“Only one kwacha mommy.”
“No, I have no kwacha.”

And the boy pointed down the way towards the station.

She hurried along for she could not bare being out in the open alone for such a great length of time. She was as skittish as the young fawn antelope of the great savannah. Every drop of her being told her to turn tail and run home to safety, every drop but one: the drop of sorrow that lined her heart, the mission that would bring her to the station. She took a long breath as she neared the din of the station. She could almost see the line coming out the door until she was grabbed by the wrist and dragged back into the shade.

“Where are you going little sister?”
“Let me go! I’m going to the station.”
“Quiet now. Do you not recognize our uniforms? We are here to help you.”
Then another officer stepped into view. “Yes, how can we help you?” he smiled.
“No.” and she struggled.
“No? No what, little girl?”

The first one had her by both hands. They laughed to make her weep. The other came closer and put his gnarled, rough hands upon her. The scene would be called poetic if it wasn’t so disgusting, her beauty would be paired with no contrast more apt. She stopped struggling and resigned herself for what would come to pass. There were others coming towards the station; they looked away and prayed softly. Then an old, round woman struggling to move her massive form cleared her throat. She was unafraid; years of sorrow and shame apparent in her stance had made her proud and strong and had washed away what reason to fear. Embarrassment frightened off the two police officers.

“What are you doing, little one? Why aren’t you home? Where is your father to let you out like this? Alone! Letting these pigs disgrace us! Go home! Now!”
Anna looked up, collected herself, and then ran towards the station.
“Go home little girl! If I catch you again I will beat some sense into you, then bring you home myself!”

She ran past the weary masses planted outside the station waiting under the desert sun. She ran on strength of will not her own. Inside, the pathetic concrete building rang with the buzzing of insects and the hungry cries of infants. She stayed out of sight and out of the way aching to know what to do now. Plaques on doors announced names, ranks and departments of which she knew nothing. The closest one to her simply read “Complaints”. She waited and took great care to listen to what was going on behind this door. She edged her way closer and closer to it. Finally, the urgency of her mission had plumbed the depths of her intrinsic fear and overcome it. She opened the door unnoticed and stood there spellbound against the doorframe. Inside the small room was a desk. Behind the desk sat two officers in the same style of uniform as the men from the alleyway. Their uniforms hung over them like heavy curtains that had faced the sun for too many years. The cardboard backing of their caps revealed itself through tattered, worn edges. The fabric of their shirts and trousers was distressed by sweat from days without proper washing and relaxed from ill manufacture. They had fallen to idle talk about soccer and women seemingly without a care in the world. They faced each other as one leaned over the desk and the other reclined in his chair.

“I tell you that striker is a coward!”
“Ha! My friend, you have no idea about the game. No idea.”
“So educate me then.”

And so forth.

As they spoke a woman stood across the way over a small, waist-high table laboriously filling out a form. Her neighbor’s child had stolen her stew pot and the neighbor refused to return it. She wrote with care, deliberately since she did not want her literacy to betray her ignorance. One of the officers looked up as she wrote and told her she could go. She gave one sigh of protest and then left.

The reclining officer called out to Anna. “Come closer my dear. How long have you been waiting there so quietly? How can we be of assistance to you?”
“My my little sister, where is your father?”
“Yes,” the other officer interrupted, “Do you have a husband?”
“No.” she replied.
“What are you doing here? Little girls should be home taking care of their families. If they did so our jobs would be so much easier!”
“No.” she replied again to the officer. “My child is gone. A man came and took her.” She almost smiled from pure relief when she said this. The day's efforts were not in vain. She had finally been heard. Now they would help her.
The officer sighed in the regional idiom, “Aht-taht-taht-taht-taht. My poor little girl, go outside and come downstairs through the back. Someone will help you there. Thank you, little one.”
“Yes, thank you.” The other said and they both dismissed her.

She stood quietly waiting for more. There was nothing. The officers went back to their positions: one on the desk and one in the chair. A mother with two children in tow plowed past Anna and rushed towards the desk talking frantically flailing her hands about in the air. The woman shook from head to toe. The children didn’t blink. They watched with mouths closed. The little ones strained their eyes upwards toward all the commotion. The reclining officer sat up to pull some forms from the file drawer, then handed them over and pointed towards the little table across the way. Anna left.

As she left the complaints office she noticed the indecent squalor of what she had overlooked in her frantic dash through the station. Boys and men crouched down farmer style, were chained together along the far wall. Their eyes were stained red; their skin was stained grey by dust. They said nothing. An officer brought them a large platter of shima porridge. Their left hands became hooks and they all took their share of the thick, sticky nourishment. They watched her as they ate. She meant to look away but she didn’t until she remembered herself and continued outside. The way back had been confused and she struggled to find her way. The station was alive and busy like the festering insides of the wretched cattle that roamed free throughout the town. The place was lined with the weary and aching, all hopeless lepers come in search of a last chance cure-all. They would find only frustration and assurance of their utter languid impotency. Anna passed a women’s cell. There were no bars on this one. It had a solid metal door with a narrow viewing space at eye-level. A single pair of eyes stared out. She heard countless other prisoners shuffling inside.

Crack! Snap! Anna jumped with a start. A wooden baton broke against the wall a few inches above her.
An officer shrieked at her, “And what if we all acted this way? Where would we be then? Huh? Huh?”

Anna could barely speak to breathe. She beat Anna with bare hands. She beat Anna along her arms and back. She kicked Anna frantically and spat. Anna made herself cry so it would stop.

“Please, let me go. I want to go outside. They told me to go outside and downstairs.”
“Go! There!” And she pointed down the way.

Anna made her way outside and found the doorway to the basement. The door was half-open. She read the number six written across a swatch of tape in black magic marker. She pushed it open. A dozen officers, male and female stood frozen in a crowded portrait of their previous conversations. All eyes now fixed upon her.

“They told me to come here,” she mumbled in a whisper.
“Of course they did my dear.” And the slow drone of idle talk started up again.
“How can we help you?”

One officer gave her his attention as the rest lounged about on furniture that lay haphazard throughout the forgotten cellar: dinner tables, chairs and other broken offal from municipal functions long forgotten. This was where the officers took refuge from the desert heat: this cool, dank place. As she spoke to the officer her weight trembled from one foot to another. She had heard stories about these people, though she had dared never ask. These officers were given certain leeway others weren’t. These were the men and women who had relations with the town, men and women who were known and feared not only by children and weaklings. These were the town’s true custodians. The officer she spoke with now was a strong man and a kind man and sometimes a fair one, too. He asked her who she was and what had happened. Anna was living with her mother and little sister. Her man had left before the baby had come. He had told her that he had a job in the mines, that he would send money. She did not want him to go. She knew the dangers of the mine lay not only underground. The men were alone there, away from family and making money. They spent their money in bars with strange women. He went nonetheless. He assured her that he was a good man. A few months later the money stopped coming. A few months after that her man came back. He had nothing. The strong liquor they drank in the cities had aged him. He had grown fat and angry. His hands were rough. He stank of urine and dust. He came back wanting what once was his. It was late when he came calling. Her mother would not let him in even after he had broken the door. Anna would not stop screaming. Anna would not go. So he left her behind. He was drunk and angry and now he had the baby. And she did not know where he was. This was two days ago.

“And this was your husband?” the officer asked, sounding somewhat annoyed that Anna had interrupted his afternoon with her family’s troubles.
“Yes. But we are not together now. He will not work. He will only drink. Please.”
“If he is your husband you must come to an agreement. You must go find his family, talk to his father and come to an agreement. This is not something for the police. This is something for families to discuss.”
“No. Please.”
“I am sorry little one. The police cannot fix the troubles of every little girl in town.”
“No. Please,” she whimpered and then she fell.

When she fell she did sleep and in her sleep she did dream. The pain that had come crashing through her now dripped as more sorrow onto her weary heart. In her dream she was above the ocean up on high atop the cliffs. She watched the waves crash and the foam rise and was afraid. Down below along the beach her child was walking, naked and alone stumbling as a toddler, stumbling towards the crashing waves. Mother screamed out to her child far out of reach. Mother called out for anyone that would save the baby. In heaven, angels of wretched sorrow listened and could bear no more. Anna awoke.

The officer was gone. A woman now held her and helped her to her feet.

“Go home little one. There is nothing more for you here.”
“No. Please,” she whimpered again.

Her baby came home on the fourth day. Her man was never seen again. There were many stories and Anna dared never ask, she only prayed in whispers and thanked God for his many gracious servants.