I met Ed on a train.
I jumped it outside San Isidro and there he was, bundled in the corner of one of the freight cars.
Drink? he asked, like it was nothing, and offered up a bottle wrapped in brown paper.
After that we rode the tracks together for a while – Pecos, Sonora, Crystal City – until I left him in Abilene with a big-eyed girl he swore he loved. I never saw him again after that.
Some say he’s in jail, others that he got religion. Some say he died.
They’re wrong. He’ll always be on a train going somewhere.
# # #
This is a 100-word flash fiction story, prompted by the picture you can see up there, as part of Friday Fictioneers.
Click here if you’d like to take part, and click here to read other pieces.
Simon John Cox 
Love that hobo feel.
Nice drifter type of story, well told.
Excellent, I really enjoyed your story.
Great feel to this, and to the idea the guy knows his travelling buddy so well.
The last line says it all. Ed, going somewhere instead of nowhere at all. Kudos
“some say…”, with these words are legends born….great narration!
Great story! It sounds like Ed can become the stuff of tall tales, the immortal traveler of the rails.
-David
Good story. I sometimes wonder what it would had been like as a hobo. … But then, I think it would be very lonely. Like the way you told this story.
Great story, sparingly told.
Fantastic take on the photo!
Thanks for the comments everyone! I'm glad you liked it.
lol.
Great take on the photo, and I liked the “some say” part.
Dear Simon John,
There's a lot of story layered between the lines. Nice take on the prompt.
Shalom,
Rochelle
I get the feeling that no matter where Ed really is, in the narrator's mind he's travelling the trainlines alongside him, in his memories. Well told.
Nice one!