Each month we will be featuring a guest writer and this month is Robyn A Hukin from Australia. She has won many writing competitions and had articles published in The School Magazine, Social Alternatives, New England Review, and Footprints.

"Western Ma-a-il! Flood damage in country towns," the beady-eyed paper boy yelled at the old woman. She reached into her straw shopping bag and picked a coin out of her purse.

Folding the newspaper under her arm the old woman caught sight of the Fremantle station clock. One twelve. She shuffled along the platform. "All aboard!" She shuffled a little faster and smiled thankfully at the guard who had indicated he would wait for her.

"Mum, why is that lady so slow?" The little boy's eyes were so wide it gave him the appearance of a rabbit in a trap. His mother clucked impatiently and put her hand over his mouth, whispering something in his ear.

The old woman panted into a seat opposite and smiled at the small boy. He was about the same age as she had been when … She brushed the thought away with the hand that pushed the greying hair from her forehead. Out of her shopping bag she pulled the newspaper and began to tut tut. Those poor people in Northam, fancy getting flooded like that. Mind you, they weren't the only ones, some areas of Perth were hit pretty badly too. Still, not like the times back in the Old Country. She folded the paper in on itself and held it closer to her face.

"Mum, why does the paper have that picture of a bridge fallen down? It's not flooding is it? Will we be able to get home without falling in the river?"

The newspaper jiggled a little. It wasn't funny was it? She remembered saying something similar to her Ma many a time. She sighed. Aye, just before they'd left her with Granny at the railway station in Edinburgh too. God knows why he'd saved her and not Mama and Papa. Hadn't Mama said she was a wicked sinner who'd have to mend her ways or God would smite her one day? Well, God got it wrong. He shouldn't have taken Mama should he? Mama spent a lot of time down the kirk, she shouldn't have drowned, should she? Mama shouldn't have gone home for Hogmanay and left her with nasty Granny McIntyre. God got it wrong.

The train finished its shooshing and grunting, tooted and ground out of Fremantle Station. Och, the paper was only full of bad news. She folded it neatly and replaced it in her shopping bag. Closing her eyes she let the faint wisp of winter sunshine warm her face.

A man in the seat across the aisle cupped his hands around the cigarette he was lighting, "River's up real high, never seen it like that before. Must be all the rain inland." Her eyes flung open, a torrent wild and raging like the Firth of Tay. She cranked herself upright on the bench seat, clutching her shopping bag. Her eyes far away, five lifetimes away, dreaming of people fished like old shoes from a freezing river, screams of no hope in her ears. Mama, Papa? Mama where are you? Her voice slung down stream frozen in the wind. Years afterwards and still screaming, still seeing the frozen faces of her parents in their coffins.

The train clattered along the track like a flapper in high heel shoes. It tooted cheekily and ventured further onto the Fremantle railway bridge. She peered out the window streaked with the dirt of past journeys. The river was brown and ominous, the colour of coffin hole dirt, swirling like a mad dog chasing its tail. She shut her eyes and began to say the prayer nasty Granny McIntyre had taught her for the funeral of her parents.

"God forgive me for my wickedness. God forgive me for driving the people I loved to an early grave …"

………. The ferryman stopped under the railway bridge, curious about yesterday's crack on the embankment. Jesus Christ! It was at least five inches wider today. Above the roar of water scrabbling at the sides of his boat he heard the faint insistence of a train whistle.

The black locomotive busied itself along the track, the faint shadow it cast along the water turned it murky for a moment. The ferryman stared at the sagging bridge, the train moving closer and closer. He caught sight of a small child waving at him and nearby the face of a frightened old woman, peering wild eyed through the dirty windows. The bridge groaned like an arthritic on an early winter morning, then a sound like the creak a dying tree makes as the timber feller pushes it. The train tooted loudly and the last carriage galloped onto dry land and the ferryman breathed out like bellows. Christ! The bloody crack was moving. He snatched at the tiller and pushed the boat into the safe side of the embankment, throwing a rope over a nearby post. Leaping out he clawed at the bank, the soil breaking away in his hands, rocks showering below him.

A line of photographers gawked at him, their lenses momentarily taken from the swirling river below.

To Be Continued

The author can be reached at here

.