train set

excerpt from “D&C”

an offcut from the StoryKettle.com

He renamed the station “Western Isles Media”, the TV is WIM and the radio channels WIM1, WIM2, WIM3... I asked him about the name – our island was the east-most one and the islands were to the west of nothing – Richard said that it was the name of the train set that he had had as a kid. “Show me the train set that a guy had as a kid and I can tell you what kind of man he is.”

The quiet thinking men had had diesel locomotives, the managers electric ones, and the interesting men steam trains, the real crazy types had real smoke coming out. I asked Chardonnay once if smoke came out of the top of her head sometimes, she said probably.

There were no natives on the island, everybody had come from somewhere else, everywhere else, the white men from the other side of the planet still had their train sets.