Mr. and Mrs. Samuels sat in the moving train across three year old Melabee, whose little face was pressed up against the cold window, her breath fogging up the glass. Her eyes ran across the fleeting scenery outside, a blur of green, pink, blue, and some brown and black here and there.
"Moo," she mumbled in fascination as the train passed a pasture filled with fat, bored cows with blades of grass hanging lazily from their muzzles.
She continued to watch the countryside, her knees turning red from kneeling too long on the padded seat. Finally deciding she was bored of watching the blurry movie, she clumsily sat back down, concentrating on keeping her balance as she dropped her legs to the floor of the locomotive. When she was finally settled on the seat, her chubby fingers found the scattered crayons on the table in front of her. She gripped the blue crayon as if she was instead making a fist instead of holding a pencil and began to scribble on the blank sheet of paper, her small pink tongue poking out of the corner of her lips.
As her imagination took over her drawing, the paper gradually transformed into what looked like three people, a man, a woman, and small little girl, overlooking a cerulean ocean.
"Look," she mumbled, lifting her drawing up to show her parents who were submerged in some sort of booklets. Christopher Samuels was the first to glance up to appreciate his daughter's work.
"Is that us, honey?" he asked in awe. "It looks so awesome!"
"This is you, this is mommy, and this Melbee," she said, pointing to each character in the drawing.
"I look very nice there," Margaret Samuels joined in.
"I look better, though, right Melbee?" her dad said, winking at her. Melabee responded with a cheeky smile and a shrug.
"Melbee's the prettiest because she has a pink bow, see?" she said, her finger touching the little pink rectangle on the stick figure's head.
"Do you wanna give daddy a bow so he can be pretty like Melbee too?"
"Okay!" Melabee complied. "I'll draw a big one on mommy, too."
Her parents watched in amusement as she scribbled pink rectangular bows on the parent stick figures. As little Melabee drew, the train suddenly gave a brief convulsion.
Mr. and Mrs. Samuels glanced at each other.
"Melbee, come here," Mr. Samuels said, outstretching his arms towards the oblivious girl. Without hesitation, and because she was finished drawing, she set down the crayon and clumsily made her way to her dad. As she made little steps, the train suddenly heaved upwards, throwing Melabee off balance and sending her down aisle of the train, away from her parents. Mr. and Mrs. Samuels attempted to go after their child but before anyone knew it, the train flipped over on its side and the contents of the train either poked out of broken windows or were suddenly smashed against the side.
A loud creaking sound continued to plague the otherwise silent locomotive as the dying train gave its last move. Then everything was silent.
Melabee opened her eyes and the soft glow of her room's light blinded her for a moment. She heard the fading sound of a Kodaline song and after that, her room was as quiet as it was in the train in her dream.
Her heartbeat was slow but heavy. It seems as if her heart was instead replaced by a suction cup, pumping thick blood in a deliberately slow motion; slow to release, slow to take in.
