Rick Hacko: A Short Story

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"Platform Josh Hacko The concrete jungle seemed to hum around the elevated downtown train station. The muted sirens echoed from the skyscraper-valleys to the line of patrons standing in front of the now defunct metro-train. The late afternoon sun bounced through cracks, onto track, casting long shadows on the road below. Summer in The Bronx. Rick Draper stood, leather bound briefcase in one hand, overcoat and hat in other, along the side of the platform, waiting. He glanced down at his gold watch, and was passively angry at the inevitable unexpected delay. As soon as the subway had left the tunnel system a voice told the passengers, over the intercom, that the train would be making an extended stop at the next train station. Rick…show more content…
Craig’s single carriage locomotive crawled along, amongst the fields. The occasional whistle whined in protest. Craig was the driver for this track. His view of the uninterrupted golden horizon was determined by left and by right. Left of the stretching expanse of military-straight railway, and right of it. For the past hour and a half he only saw three harvesters, collecting crop that was planted slightly earlier than the rest. He saw three bright blue or red or green machines towering above the shoulder high stalks, swallowing up the ripened corn and leaving behind the unbuttered, burnt toast. They were tumours on the landscape. But so were the fields of perfectly straight corn rows and so was his military straight scar. Only the toast was not cancered. But it was. He thought of the chemicals seeping into the ground and their “Adverse Effects on the Cyanobacteria and Enzymes in the Nitrogen cycle”. He read that somewhere. He entertained the thought that everything around him was actually supposed to be there, but the inevitable truth of it was stuck in his head. The corn would be shipped to factories to be canned or processed into syrup and then shipped again to some big city. As expected as the next line of corn was, he saw the platform in the distance, approaching rapidly. A meagre galvanised shed on a concrete slab. Not a platform but a raisin on the…show more content…
The afternoon had slowly merged into evening. Hazy light spilling down, marking the imminent start of night. Rick knew that by now he probably could have walked to his apartment in the Upper East Side, yet he still stood by the train, hoping that it would miraculously start up again. He thought of the other passengers waiting for this train at the next station, they probably looked at each other and shared meaningless smiles while restraining their urge to scream out in frustration. Another team of engineers walked up the stairs from the road and met with the existing team. Hellos were exchanged and one of them even asked about “Stewarts” family. Stewart said his family was good. Or something. Rick couldn’t really hear him. Stewart’s assistant crawled under the train and started taking out a few parts, replacing them with new ones from a box by his side. A few minutes later he emerged from the underside of the train, grease on his fingertips. Stewart then hopped onto the platform and

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