A feeble sun shines down on an old man waiting at the abandoned railroad station. The brown leaves from the dying trees bristle stiffly, occasionally fluttering down around the old fashioned station building like wounded bats. Though there are many benches, he stands facing the old, rotting tracks, discolored carpet bag in hand and wilted walrus mustache swaying gently in the gloomy wind.
His loosely woven, baggy clothes hang tenderly from his forlorn form –thin pants, tied at the waist; long loose shirt; grass sandals; and a hand made sunhat – all of varying shades of sandy brown. His carpet bag, too large for his few possessions, hangs wearily from his veined hand, flowery patterns faded and leather handles threadbare.
A long, sharp nose is angled down over his drooping mustache as if to anchor it from the weak wind in which it swings. His cheeks are hollow caverns over which are draped copious amounts of sagging skin. And his eyes are a secretive, sorrowful dark green buried deep in radiating wrinkles; creviced mementos of past troubles and triumphs.
There is something undeniably pitiable in his drooping shoulders, sagging carpet bag, and limp mustache. Something that makes the cloud-shrouded sun seem lonesome and the gentle wind in the brown leaves seem like the whispered farewell to a beloved homeland.
A murky memory surfaces in those shadowy eyes: a middle aged woman and a small girl, tears coursing down their faces, lingered at the back of a crowd bustling onto a train. The plump little girl clung to his leg and he could feel her warm tears through his pants. He had plucked her from the ground and, holding her out at arms length, twirled around. He had then flung her still wet head to his shoulder where his tears had sunken into her dark curls and hers into his shirt. A train whistle had sounded. The woman had gently peeled the child from the man’s chest and brushed a hurried but heartfelt kiss onto his cheek. Then, carrying the child, she leapt onto the train and was whisked away.
Would he see them again?
A train whistle sounds: faint at first, but growing in volume as the foreboding inside the man grows in ferocity. Eventually, the large, powerful train rolls into view and stops in front of the old man, its glistening newness overwhelming the dilapidated station.
The old man hesitates, even takes a frightened step away from the gleaming monster. But then a wave of determination crashes up against him and he squares his shoulders, hitches his bag into a comfortable grip and, without looking back on the land he is leaving, steps onto the train and is whisked away.
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So... do you think the flashback is confusing and makes it more than just a scene or do you think that it adds? I just thought that there wasn't enough background the other way...
The only thing that bugged me was the lenght of the first sentence.
