Chapter Nineteen: The Grand Dragon
By Jason Goldtrap
On Friday, Sarah and Emily stared a hole through the clock as they made notes of each movement of the hour hand. Mrs. Grayson knew they’d tuned out every word she’d uttered that day, but she appreciated, even reflected their excitement. At 2:30, the bell joyfully clanged. They scooted away their desks and gracefully arose from their seats. They linked arms and grabbed their luggage.
Then they heard the rumbling of the mighty locomotive.
“Early?”
Emily said in a panic.
“Water break,”
Sarah reassured and reminded her.
They looked to Mrs. Grayson for approval.
“Go on, go,”
she playfully shooed them to the door. They skipped out. Within the blink of an eye, they were at the train station.
The fantastic grand dragon spewed steam and seemed restless for the next stop. Sarah briefly said
“hello”
and then
“goodbye”
to her father. Michael Conrad was very happy to be home and glad that she too was going to Helena.
A young porter spotted them,
“Afternoon, ladies,” addressing them with deliberate eloquence. Emily and Sarah excitedly looked to each other searching for cues wondering who would reply first.
Emily spoke up; Sarah was nervous wondering what would slide out of her mind.
“Why, thank you sir and here is a little something for your trouble.”
He skillfully moved the bags to the compartment.
Emily whispered,
“Now he is cute.”
She wanted to stay and get to know the porter a little better but Sarah squeezed her hand and cleared her throat as a cue to leave him alone:
“Em, the train?”
“Oh yeah, I forgot.”
Emily said as she handed the conductor, Mel, her ticket.
“All aboard,”
bellowed the conductor.
The train jerked a couple of times and seemed to slip backwards as the steel wheels began to skate on the tracks. Loud clicks along with screeching accompanied the movement.
Cha chung, cha chung, cha chung.
They passed the edge of the station. They passed the schoolhouse. They passed the church building on the hill.
“Farewell Crummy Creek,”
they sang in unison.
They looked into each others eyes and silently screamed with sheer delight. This was no dream; this was liberty, a sweet, delectable adventure. They were fleeing like sparrows from the dullest part of Montana, a new world awaited.
A couple of more stops, a few passenger exchanges and it was time for dinner. They moved to the Dining Car, a dapper waiter found a seat for them. The words on the menus appeared to be in gold leaf.
Sarah grinned.
“It’s all paid for by the school board.”
Emily could not believe her ears. Sarah and the trip meant more to her with each passing second. Emily eyes brightened,
“Quail? Lamb? Oh Sarah, this is so fancy!”
The waiter’s suit shimmered like a full moon.
“Good evening ladies.”
Emily whispered,
“Sarah, he called us ‘Ladies.’”
“Can I start you two off with a salad?”
“Yes, sir,”
they spoke in duet.
After dinner, as the lights slowly dimmed, Emily and Sarah played Spades and took turns gazing out the window at the patchwork countryside. There were violet mountains capped in white, excitedly illuminated by a distant electrical storm. The outline of the birch, aspen, larch and spruce trees scalloped the starry sky as if the Creator had gracefully crimped them with pinking shears. Every once in a while, there’d be a cabin, smoke puffing from the chimney.
To Sarah, the scenery was like incense to the eyes. It was as though the view tenderly caressed her mind and invited her soul to a higher realm. She was in a trance. She felt as though she was falling through space, through love itself.
The moment vanished like the mist. Tomorrow lulled away into oblivion. Her awareness superseded her comprehension. To her there was no train, no rhetoric competition. She was simply a lone angel vectoring away from the sensory cyclone. She drifted in an unfathomable, preposterous recess of existence like a feather floating through the cosmos of vintage youth.
It was familiar, like a memory, and yet, what she experienced had not yet occurred. It was as though her conscience was bouncing back and forth between stages of her life. For a moment, she was in another reality. She could see, hear, taste, touch, and even smell the visions which unfurled before her.
Her lips moistened with amorous anticipations as a strong hand affectionately moved up her forearm.
Her legs ached as she anxiously ran through the darkness, leapt over a wall and then screamed.
The wind blew through her hair as she joyfully sped along the streets of Helena with Emily.
She felt a prodigious reward as she watched her own high school graduation.
She stood in a white chapel festooned with verdant garlands in a wedding dress. She said,
“I do,”
and kissed the man her heart adored but had not yet met.
She cradled her first baby daughter in her arms.
“Mommy loves you.”
She laughed as she patted her feet in a clear pool of water next to a lad with a fishing pole
She heard the roar of a massive crowd. An arena of people listened intently to her speech.
She rocked in a chair on the front porch of a beautiful house. Her hands wrinkled with wisdom.
The projection of her soul ended when she lost focus because of swelling tears. Emily put her hands on her Sarah’s lap. She whispered,
“Sarah are you alright?”
“Emily, oh Emily,”
her voice echoed an undertone of unbridled elation,
“life is more beautiful than I could ever imagine.”
