Dia

While my hair waved like white clouds gliding across the sky in front of my eyes, I looked at the locomotive spewing black smoke into the same sky with the anger in its chimney.

I wiped my sweaty palms on my knees, trying to muffle the squeal of the train cars sliding on the tracks that overlapped with my heartbeat.

I smiled at the man reaching out his hand to me, leaning against the small iron-grilled gate at the end of the cars. I had very little time to grasp his hand, which held an invitation containing all the warmth of the future.

As he yelled, "Come with me!" his face twisted with expressions of sorrow, hope, and the inability of a child to share its toy.

I straightened my spine and released the breath trapped in my chest, letting it free.