The Last Elephant Keeper

Part 2

 She slammed the front door behind her storming out onto the street, and ignoring the gentle greetings of the children playing around. Ignoring everyone else around her, Khumo would shove her card onto every till, screen, and on every tram as she gradually approached the first station on the trans-continental mag-way, the only way in and out of what was left of Africa.

Solemnly by the steps of the cracked, and stained building, she walked into the station, which had once been a marvel of mid-twenty first century design. Its facade of rammed earth had crumbled over time, revealing a shuffled stack of clay produced roughly by the early industrial printers of that era, a place she had once recalled as giving her so much hope had seemingly been forgotten.

"Can I help you ma'am?", The attendant asked.

"No, I'm just looking around.", Khumo said.

Her hands remained stuck on the wall, and so had most of her attention as the attendant patiently observed.

"As the attendant at the station, my job is to help. Even with helping people with looking around.", The attendant said with a smile.

She barely noticed the people or the noise around her. Her mind was elsewhere, replaying the scene with Jonathan over and over. She traced the faded mural that ran along the station wall, a reminder of a past that was long gone. She heard a faint tapping sound behind her, but she ignored it.

It was probably the attendant, trying to get her attention again. He had asked her if she needed help, but she had brushed him off. She didn't want to talk to anyone. She knew he was watching her, following some protocol that required him to be silent, respectful, courteous, and consistent. She saw him retreat to his booth, a tiny cage that trapped him in his job. He kept glancing at her, his nails digging into his palms. She didn't care. She had bigger things to worry about.

Fidgetily the attendant turned away and headed back to his bird cage, as the loiter on his periphery would remain in his target, as he dug onto his already jagged nails and focused on nothing else beyond his periphery.

Her hands brushed against what was left of the mural. Reaching for her pocket, she took out the only photo she had taken with her mother, and of the mural before it had changed so much. She wished things had remained like they had been on the photograph, without the complications that sneak in, when life passes by.

She checked the time, and briskly turned away from the mural, and placed the photo away as she headed over to the caged bird.

"Card? - Oh, thanks.", Attendant said.

Deeply moved by the mural, her attention remained firmly on the imagery of the flock led to finer pastures.

"Full round trip? Or are you heading to the mines? Ma'am?", the Attendant said.

Struck from the thought, Khumo nods, "Full round.", Khumo said.

"You know most of the memorial museums around here.", the Attendant said.

"I know." She said, pulling herself further away from the man.

"Yeah, but I get trying to connect. It was once your homeland.", the Attendant said.

"It still is.", Khumo said.

Shrugging the comment off, as he scratched his chin and constantly refreshed the till screen to the Khumo's glare. The two seemed to find their own ways to pass time, in the relic they were stuck in, but before long their silence was broken the clean swoop of the freighter levitating to a brisk stop.

"And?", Khumo pestered.

"Yes, You know, I have been thinking, with the stuff I have to work with here, I could be getting a better paying job at a museum after this.", the Attendant said.

"I would be happy, to see you find another job.", she snapped.

The train card had been shoved over the surface of the reception table with the ease of a finger, as the attendant quickly turned to his screen with only faint rumble for a goodbye. The hum of the train being the only focus for Khumo, as she took her card and at a strained breath makes her way through the stiffness of her legs, and rapidly pulsing heart into the bay of the trans-African railway.