She stared out the train window watching the frantic building work along the tracks. Constant activity. As if they were trying to mimic the forces of nature. But where a volcano creates new islands or an earthquake forms new mountains, the activities along the tracks created nothing.
Wind blowing fresh life laughed at their efforts. Dust clouds rose and caught the back of their throats. Dry, arid concrete dust making them cough and ache.
They busied themselves, trying to make something, and could only produce a grey, eye-aching mess. None of the beauty of volcano fire or the power of swirling tornado.
She looked out the window into the distance and saw it sprawl on and on. Relentless. All the machines hurry, hurrying, desparately moving - "progressing" - to nothing but lifelessness. Rose felt the heaviness of concrete on her chest. Thick blocks holding her down, constricting her breathing. She forced herself to drop her shoulders and breathe through her nose, slowly. Gradually the blocks lifted and she could look out the window again without panicking. Next stop my stop, she noted, gathering up her bag. As she waited for the doors to open she looked at the other passengers. I wonder do they ever feel the bricks on their chest? And if so, do they know why?
They looked glumly fashionable and stiff-shoed, moving like it hurt them to do so. Like they would fall apart if they didn't concentrate on holding themselves together. Except for the kids sometimes. A little boy was jumping up and down, excited. He moved freely, loosely. Bounding from seat to seat, unable to contain himself in the straightjacket the adults were trying to stuff him in.
"Sit down Jack!", his mother frowned. But he couldn't hold himself, refused to mould himself in her image yet. Rose wondered how long it would be before they got to him too. Before he was sitting petrified in his seat, moving slow and stiff from station to station.
The door opened and closed and Rose stood there, wondering if maybe today she could go to the beach instead of back to the office. She stayed on another few stops til the train arrived at the seaside and then made her way down to the seashore. Her phone started ringing, but she switched it off. A few black cormorants were hanging out on the rocks and some seagulls swooped to take a closer look at her. Not many birds, as usual. Hardly anything can survive the human invasion. Waves lapped cold blue on the seaweed rocks and her breath was easy for the first time today. The sea shimmered and glowed, slowing everything down, tuning the madness out. Here was calm movement, real movement. Breaking on the shiny rocks, waves never ending, never beginning, just waves, waving. Time stretched like the horizon and the sun slowly glided through the sky, warming her bare hands, reviving her cold heart.
She faded and dissolved into the waves, sinking and flowing. Thoughts floated and bobbed like the sun patches on the waters surface. Bobbing and floating. A moment, an eternity later, she surfaced and gathered herself together again.
******
"Where were you yesterday afternoon?" Her boss wasn't impressed the next day.
"Well?" He glared at her.
It crossed Rose's mind that she should apologise. But a salty smell filled her head.
"I was at the beach," She got her bag and stood up.
"You what?" The boss was almost spitting. "What the hell were you doing there?"
"Nothing", she said, and went to catch her train.