A Train, a Tram and a Dumpling.

It wasn’t a dream, because I had a ticket.

I showed it to someone in a uniform and he wrote the number 230 on it.

Not a seat number because the only place for me was on the steps by the door.

It was probably the number of times the door had hit me as they slid open and shut.

A woman said something.

I didn’t understand a word; her language sounded like a mountain torrent tumbling over pebbles. 

Beautiful.

But I needed gills.

So I pointed at a deer standing in the middle of the green pasture we were passing.

She flowed a little more.

I struggled a little more in her current.

The train, because it was a train, stopped. Some people got on, some got off.

I got off. 

It was raining.

Biblical bucket loads.

So I sheltered with the others in a shop door-way.

The shop was selling dumplings, they smelt good.

A tram came and stopped in front of us. It looked drier than the shop 

door so we all ran across the tracks and jumped inside.

I no longer had a ticket, but no one seemed to care.

Suddenly I was the only person left on the tram and the tram was stationary.

The driver turned and shouted something in my direction.

More torrent, more pebbles.

But I got off and followed the paths to a riverside.

I could see neither ships nor sea though both were clearly close. 

I tried to read a sign attached to a pole and rising from the river bank.

The words there were not moving past me but I still didn’t understand.

The words included an L with a line through it and an O, likewise.

Did it mean they were not required?

Returning to the tramway, suddenly I was hungry. I followed the tracks through the crumbling streets of a small town.

Buildings looked as if they had been damaged in a recent conflict, they had scars.

Windows were broken.

The houses may have been crying. 

I came to a place that suggested a tram would stop and I sat and waited.

One came.

It stopped.

I returned to the smell of the dumplings, found their source and went inside. It was like a canteen, so I pointed at a plate of dumplings.

The person serving me used the same words from the river bed and asked me a question.

I nodded.

She posed another.

I nodded again.

She laughed, and asked the two together.

Even with no mastery of pebble and water I recognised them as the same questions as before.

I made a hand gesture that I hoped conveyed the meaning you choose and sat at one of the tables.

They were delicious.