A Miraculous Close Call

Excellence Award in the 'The Text Generation 2014' competition

The chimney coughed out clouds of black smoke, making it difficult to breathe for the passing pedestrians. Murmurs of people on board resonated with the oldie, classic music in the background, blending in naturally. Youths, dressed in colour-blinding articles of clothing bounced, tirelessly around with others. Formal attire dressed men pushed carts of food and beverages, uselessly ignored as passengers chattered on with their conversation. The rich, golden silk curtains swayed in the tranquil breeze, sometimes briefly caressing the passengers, unnoticed. The guards were strictly clad in a tedious, navy blue uniform, rimmed with black. And being as hopeless as they were, heads tilted down and dozing off.
Abruptly, everything altogether, came to a sudden stop. The train pulled on the brakes. The wheels made an ear-splitting screech on the train tracks. Passengers attempted to block the sound by pressing palms against their ears. Shrieks, gasps echoed throughout the train, from panicked passengers on board. However, it never came to them that the over-sized vehicle never reached to a complete stop.
“Attention, passengers! Please do calm down. We are truly sorry for the sudden halt.” A bead of sweat streamed down between his brows. He tried to keep his calm façade. He knew too well of the fact that in the distance, another train was chugging closer as he talked. “A-apparently, due to some… circumstances, this train will be forced to switch the route of our destination to a longer route. T-this will cause some delay, as you may already know. We deeply apologize for any inconveniences that we have caused you.” And with that speech filled with blunders and stutters, he flees off with all the speed before any passengers can argue and cause a riot. The staff was trying their best to switch the tracks to another route, to prevent the collision of two trains from occurring.
The staff were plugging their fingers into multi-coloured buttons hopelessly. But nothing triggered the switch to move the tracks. Disputes and protests sounded throughout the train. Passengers spluttered out questions, like “Why wasn’t the train tracks switched?” or “You knew of our scheduled train times, yet why did you make such a mistake such as this?” and so on. The train’s staff refused to let the passengers know of this, and prayed that the tracks would switch at the very last second for their survival. The chugging became louder as stressful, seconds ticked by. The panic risen hysterically.
Miraculously, the sound that everyone speculating wasn’t there. The conductor, out of disbelief, poked out his head examining the landscape for any sign of a train moving towards theirs. Nothing. How could a train just, disappear? The same question crossed through everyone’s mind. Stunned, was the word used to describe the feeling in this enigma. Glad that the ‘incident’ that was going to happen, didn’t, everyone continued on with their activities. But a hint of curiosity pondered around every person’s mind, even the ones that didn’t have the knowledge of it.

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