Martin Salazar’s boots did not fit. His gait wobbled, a dance he had lost the rhythm to. His stride wasn’t what it used to be, even when his feet were at home in their own leathers. His back crooked to the left like a sapling seeking the sun. Muscles ached in ever-present protest somewhere in the back of Martin’s mind. He had been shaped by it, pain. Age made him all too acquainted with the twinges and creaks that took up residence in the hollows left by withered youth.
A hard life for a hard man, he liked to say when asked by those still miles away from the shores of senility. The tide, he’d admit to a friend, rises without mercy. It takes you under, no matter how strong, how able you are. What he’d never say, though, was that he feared what waited for him at the bottom, in the dark.
He shivered in a too-tight coat, rain finding its way into the broken seams. Rain was a welcome rarity in town. Choked by dust that found its way onto every surface, crack, and hole. It coated the nose and throat, spit out, coughed out, but it never went away. A constant reminder of where he lived and the shit-hole it had become. He’d been chewed on by the place for his entire life, molded by its teeth and grit. Martin was as much Willowvale as it was him. A forgotten, crusted slice of nowhere. He spat, watched for a moment as the phlegm joined the mud. It would be best to keep moving, else he feared the boots would begin to stick in the slurry.
The rail station was empty. Thunder grumbled, still a ways out. Wind howled through the open platform, so Martin sheltered next to a wooden post supporting the awning, which swayed with each gust. He dug around in the jacket’s pockets for the first time. A couple of coins, enough for a ticket. A lighter, some smokes. He lit one, fumbling with the unfamiliar tin for a moment. The shakes started a few months ago and hadn’t left. New ailments appeared to be permanent, now. In his youth, illnesses were a temporary setback. The afterimages of many a sickness clung to him, too, like the dust and dirt. He would never be as healthy as he was at this moment again. Every condition took a piece, some a little, some a lot.
A bleak future, on the best of terms. Coughs spasmed his chest with each drag. The train would come with the light of day, but Martin knew that he would be no passenger. He had sat on this bench many times during his life, staring at the tracks. The way out of this place would come. The few coins in his pocket would buy him his freedom from Willowvale. In youth, in middle-age, and now in his twilight years he sat here, waiting for a train he knew he could not take.
This was his last chance. Age would not be his end if he took this train. He had lost Willowvale, one way or another. It would be divest of him, ripped out like a weed. And yet, he would not take that train. He could not. There was simply nowhere left to walk in a dead man’s boots.
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