Inside Song

by Mary Brigid Lawlor

It was so cold on the platform that the young girl’s breath hardly moved as she blew tunnel shapes against the frosty air. Her mother, beside her, shifted impatiently from one foot to the other. “I swear, this train is NEVER on time” she said. By the time she had finished her sentence her daughter was leaning over the platform edge, as if by peering intently she could, somehow, make the train come faster.

She hated the gruffness in her mother’s voice.

She hopped from one foot to the other to keep in time with the tune in her head. So intent on her ‘Inside Song’ was she that the surprise, as much as the force, of the blow to her head sent her reeling around the platform. “How many times must I tell you NOT to go near the edge? You could be killed stone dead when the train comes!” her mother shouted. “If it EVER comes. Go over to that wall and stay there, don’t move until you’re called and never EVER stand so close to the edge!”

As she stood against the wall, she could hear the sound of the approaching train. Her mother was strolling along the platform. She stooped precariously over the edge to dispose of her cigarette butt as her daughter watched in terror.

Her ‘Inside Song’ was gone and was replaced by a terrifying silence which was only broken by her mother’s call: “Are you stuck to the wall or what? The train is here!”

IAHIP 2024 - INSIDE OUT 102 - Spring 2024