Melting on the Train: A Wordle Inspired Short
We all surely know by now that Wordle has taken Twitter by storm and become a hugely familiar face among the writing community online. Over at OverWoods, we truly love the game and as a kind of pseudo tribute (and a not so subtle way to remember to keep up that Wordle streak!), we've decided to use each daily, 5 letter answer as the inspiration to a short story or poem this May!
*Of course, we wouldn't want to reveal the answer of the day's Wordle prematurely and ruin the experience for others. So, every Wordle inspired short is brought to you the day after its inspiration hit your screen. This is a no spoiler zone! We promise.
This short is brought to you by our blogger, Megan Oberholzer.
Author comment: The next thrilling Wordle answer (from yesterday) is "train", which has sparked my next inspired short, "Melting on the Train", a dreary and reflexive portal into life in the city and being one in a thousand. Take a look:
Melting on the Train (04/05/2022)
It occurs to me that the 9.22 outbound from Charlston is not the right train. But then again, it had been a while since I’d remembered the right way home.
The Mayfield Line’s J cart seems to me like its own world. One of wary travellers in dull work coats, of saturated blues and heavy, browning yellows. In many ways it reminds me of a jail cell tacked to a horse and carriage, with its regular square window frames barring over the glass and the pensive gazes into the outside or the sun-shy shrinking of its passengers, the clingle of their key chains like chaffing shackles. But often, perhaps mostly as the windows suck in the darkness and my reflection watches raggedly back at me, as a tunnel pounds overhead, an asynchronous rhythm among the enduring monotony of the city’s heartbeat, cart J reminds me primarily of a submarine scene filmed entirely in noir.
I wonder if it’s war. I wonder if it’s some alternate reality. I wonder if anyone else feels the same.
And I know it will be a while yet, a few more murky panes, the rain cascading over the glass, the wind whipping suspended streams into the blur far, far away from here – it would be a while yet, I know, before I’d think to leave. So often, it’s like it’s always, my thoughts start to melt, merging at the edges, bubbling up in the centre – I never want too – why can’t I just – here, it’s not so bad here –
I reach out my hand, up to the glass. My finger cuts through the mist – I saw it as it grew once, building off the exhales from all the hollowed souls passing through just today – my finger coming away cold and dripping, layered with the fizzing perspiration of all the people inside the train cart still barely living.
It occurs to me now how much I like the rain. The way it softens things. Blurs them together. Sometimes, I’m almost entirely convinced, as the world melts into itself around me, warped and contorted into some place I barely even recognise anymore, that someday I might just melt right into it too.
This one has me a little excited; there's a lot I enjoy, especially where some of the imagery came out well. Although, I will admit maybe the concept doesn't come through too clearly, its just about as murky as the aesthetic itself!
But maybe you got it?
The "extra" inspiration I sourced today came from a quote originally posted to tumblr by relatablepoetryandquotes:
“I love the rain. I love how it softens the outlines of things. The world becomes softly blurred, and I feel like I melt right into it.”
- Hanagmoto Hagumi, Honey and Clover
I think you'll agree it's a nice quote. I especially jumped on it because I mistook the first sentence for "I love the train", which is - I'm sure you'll agree - extremely logical and profound. But, I think rain as observed from the inside of a train has a compelling, complimentary atmosphere, and with the right writer, a lot can be done with it to a great effect.
You can particularly see where I've drawn on Hagumi's writing with concepts of "melting", "softening" and "blurring", as well as an obviously positive outlook on the rain, being from the UK.
Naturally, this quote wasn't my only inspiration - I really do like a detailed brief, but that's not because of a lack of ideas on my part, but because I have a tendency to try and cram far too much into these kinds of shorts, to the point they go from flashfics to short stories, so when I have covered most, if not all, of the subjects under my brief, I know it's time to wrap it up.
In my typical fashion, I googled "phrases using train" and found this on the google imbed:
“Many times the wrong train took me to the right place…”
And I liked that a lot.
I'm not sure if it quite counts as chiasmus but it got my brain buzzing with an interesting action for my scene: someone on the wrong train.
How do they feel about that? What are they going to do about it? Why?
Of course, having read my short, you'll know my answers to these, and they're not as runaway as you might anticipate. I preferred to stay to true to the quote, but not necessarily in a direct way: the main character of "Melting on the Train" is quite used to their situation, and possibly even apathetic about it to the point of inaction, to total acceptance. And I suppose it's up to you to figure out why.
Why wouldn't you care if you got on the wrong train? What must life be like for you?
And I tried to answer these questions through imagery. I tried to use an at times ghoulish and melancholic atmosphere, along with the repeated illusions to "mind fog" and dissociative behaviour, to tell you a little something about the character's state of mind and to leave you with at least a vague impression of their current life situation.
Feel free to let me know what you think in the comments down below (vVv)! Hopefully, you enjoyed today's post!