Memories: Adventures in DART-Land

While rummaging through old emails, I found this 'story' I'd written back when I was 16. I want to share it because as I read it, I realized the writing was very good for a 16 year old. Even now, I would be hard pressed to match or exceed this kind of writing. So I'll take it away!!!....
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 1

I awoke to the sound of my screaming alarm clock. Knowing it would have no mercy on my sleep-ridden body, I dragged myself lazily out of bed. It was six o’clock and I was tired. I begrudgingly pulled my clothes on and headed downstairs to get the awful morning taste out of my mouth. When I got downstairs and looked in the refrigerator I moaned remembering we didn’t have any milk so I couldn’t have cereal of waffles. There was no kool-aid either, which is what I normally use to get the morning taste out of my mouth. I quickly got out a can of soda and chugged that. It took the taste away but left my mouth dry. I grabbed my backpack and headed out the door.
As I walked to the bus stop I thought back to my instructions. The previous night I had called DART services to get the numbers of the buses and trains I needed to take to get to Irving, and what times I needed to take them:
"You’ll take the 582 bus, which leaves at 6:31 am, to Park Lane Station. At Park Lane Station get on the light rail heading to West Moreland and ride it to City Place Station. From there take the 409 bus which will take you right by Irving City Hall."
Sounded easy enough. So I was in pretty high spirits as I reached the bus stop. I sat down to wait for my bus. I had only a few things in my backpack. My CD player, my CD case, my internship papers, my bus instructions, and Harry Potter. I brought Harry Potter to make sure I didn’t fall asleep on the bus and miss my stop. But as tired as I was, I was well alert as the bus pulled up and I got on.
Also the previous day I had purchased a special sticker from Richland that they put on my school ID. This allowed me to ride all the DART buses and trains for free until September 1st. I showed my ID to the bus driver as I climbed the steps. He nodded and let me through. I’d never been on a bus before and I found it surprisingly clean. I took my seat and the bus took off again.

Chapter 2:

I was too afraid to take out my book for fear I might somehow miss my stop, so I just stared out the window at the sun, which was a soft color of gold and orange as it rose from the horizon. After awhile we pulled into Park Lane Station. I followed everyone else off the bus and onto the waiting light rail. I had my school ID ready but there was no one on the train to check it so I stuffed it back in my pocket. The light rail was a lot cleaner than the bus and was very orderly. I found an empty seat and slumped down in it.
Never having been on a train before, I couldn’t take my eyes off the passing scenery. The landscape rolled by and the train zoomed along. We went over a bridge, across a field, and through a tunnel. The train made stops every so often at other stations and I took these times to check the name of my stop again. I briefly noted the people getting on and off, but what was there really to look at? They were just people getting off and on the train.
"Next stop, City Place Station. City Place Station next." I heard the conductor say over the speaker system. We were just entering the tunnel so there was no longer anything to look at outside. I tried to see into the darkness but I could only see the occasional light fly by. We glided into City Place Station slowly. The station looked like a small cavern, being in the middle of a tunnel and all. I got ready to get off but I noticed no one else seemed to be worrying about getting off. No one in the station was getting on the train either as far as I could tell. The thought popped into my head that maybe we, the passengers, were supposed to get off somewhere else and the train was only stopping to refuel or something.
One thing I had noticed from the previous stops we’d made is that the train didn’t stop for long, only about a minute or so. I realized that if I didn’t hurry up and get off I’d still be on the train when we started rumbling out of the station. I quickly decided to get up and try to get off.
I walked up to the doors, assuming they had a sensor and would open automatically. It didn’t. What did happen was the train started again…abruptly. I lost my balance and thudded against the wall. I tried to act casual as I walked back to my seat. I don’t think anyone was buying it though, because I got a lot of weird looks. "Dang it!" I thought, as we pulled out of the station, "I’m going to miss my bus!"

Chapter 3:

I didn’t really know what to do so I went back to thinking as I stared blankly out the window. We were going into downtown now. I didn’t really know what I was going to do, so I just kind of sat there. We passed Union Station and something my parents had told me earlier flashed into my head. They had given me a brief explanation of what trains and buses to take before they has gone out of town for the week.
"It’s simple Derek, just take a bus from here on Forest and Abrams and that will take you to Park Lane Station. Get on the light rail and that’ll take you to Union Station. From there you can take a train which will land you about a block and a half away from City Hall."
Take a train from Union Station? But when I called DART they told me to take a bus from City Place. I wondered who was right, and if they were both right, which was faster. I tried to get off again at Union Station to check it out. When the train stopped I walked boldly up to the front door, thinking that last time it only didn’t open because the train was about to start moving again. However it did not open.
As I was standing there looking confused, as I’m sure I did, a teenage girl who had been watching me from a few seats back got my attention. "Push the button." she said. Of course I had absolutely no idea what button she was talking about. I began looking around for a button. I pushed what looked like a button but ended up just being a light, further adding to my feeling of stupidity. The girl saw my added confusion and came over and showed me, however I didn’t have time to push it because the train started moving again.
As I moped back to my seat I thought about what a stupid button that was. It was a little black button on a crossbar about waist level that said, "Push To Open Doors". It didn’t even glow or anything. Did the rail service just expect people to know how to open the doors? Anyway, I didn’t approve. At the next stop I hurriedly got off to make sure I didn’t get stuck on the train again. I looked around at the station and found that the next line that could take me back to Union Station wouldn’t come for another ten minutes. In that ten minutes I began to enjoy myself, looking out over downtown. I was amazed at how easily I’d gotten here.
The whole "not buying a car and just riding the bus everything" theory my Dad had frequently preached finally came into perspective. As long as you had a season pass, I guess you could call it, who needed a car? I mean, here I was way downtown and I didn’t have to do hardly anything! I was saving on gas and insurance all at once! Maybe I wasn’t saving on time…but it evened out. The train and bus systems are good, I decided. I didn’t have long to dwell on it though because the light rail came sliding in.

Chapter 4:

I got off at Union Station to check out if I could take a train from there to Irving. Getting off the stairs onto the station I noticed a stairway ahead of me going underground like a subway stair. "That must be where I get onto my train." I thought. As I started walking toward the stairway, the light rail pulled away, revealing the Trinity Railway Express, what I later found out was the train going to Irving.
I descended the stairs and entered a low ceiling hallway heading up. I started walking up the ramp. Suddenly a very awful and distinct odor entered my nostrils. The whole ramp smelled like rotting wood that someone had urinated on and had been sitting there for ages. I half-walked and half-ran up the rest of the ramp, entering into a much larger area that looked like a lobby.
There was a person here and there sitting down reading various papers and magazines. I thought at first they were waiting for the train that was supposedly going to take me to Irving. I looked around trying to find directions to the platform, or even the times when the train came in. I didn’t see anything though. There was a counter across the room, but there was no one behind it. I couldn’t find anyone that looked like they worked there who could tell me about the train.
I walked back down through the smelly ramp and back up the stairs into the station. The light rail going back to City Place was just pulling in, so I jumped in. I got off at City Place and luckily the next bus going to Irving was just pulling up. "Man, I’m pretty lucky!" I thought as I climbed into the bus, flashing my ID at the driver.
I was finally able to start reading my book, since it would be a long time before I had to worry about getting off. I didn’t really look up from my book until we pulled into a station. I didn’t know what station it was, but according to the street signs I saw, I knew it was close to City Hall. I didn’t know whether to get off the bus now and walk around looking for City Hall or just wait on the bus and see if we went any nearer. I decided to wait.
Fortunately the bus went right past City Hall and I was able to get off.

Chapter 5:

After explaining to my supervisor why I was late, she said it didn’t really matter to her. I knew she was right because the whole reason I was working there was to get two hundred hours for my internship course for my associates degree. So if I missed time I would just have to make up for it later.
She started me off watching one of the other interns while he worked. He was taking about one hundred and fifty images and having to manually resize them in Photoshop. The first thing I did was show him a technique in Photoshop where the system would go through and do the exact same thing to all of the images with one action. Not only did this save him a lot of time but the computer was working on it’s own.
So while the computer went off on its own, we got to talking. His name was Chad Powell (no relation) and he was only eighteen. He’d been interning there for about 2 years so he knew all the ropes. Since I showed him my technique, I was already on his good side. We had a lot in common and it was fun talking.
The computer eventually finished, but by the time he had to go so I didn’t really get to watch him do anything. After he left my supervisor loaded me down with a huge stack reading to do: tutorials, software manuals, and company statistics. Luckily I was reading at a computer station that was normally used by someone else. I browsed around the computer and found his 300+ mp3 library, so this kept me somewhat entertained as I read. The rest of the day passed slow and eventfully.

Chapter 6:

I finished my last book at around five o’clock and left. As I was descending the stairs from the building I remembered that I had forgotten to ask the DART representative the night before what buses/trains I needed to take to get back home. Not knowing exactly what to do, I just went and waited at the same bus stop I had gotten off at earlier that morning, hoping that if I got on it would eventually return to City Place.
After waiting for about twenty minutes I decided to go back inside the building and call DART and ask. Once inside I asked the guard at the front desk if there was a courtesy phone I could use. He said he was using the only one but he’d be off in just a second. From what I heard it sounded like he was talking to a friend. I thought it pretty rude that a guard who has free reign over the entire building would use the courtesy phone to make his personal calls…
He quickly wrapped up his conversation and handed me the phone. I called DART and they put me on hold to wait for an operator. I noticed the guard was just kind of standing there glancing at me every now and then. I figured he wanted to call back whomever he was talking to before and finish his conversation. After several minutes of being on hold, and not wanting to be a bother, I just hung up. I thanked him and headed for the door.
I looked back to see what the guard did after I hung up. He was walking off (to do more guard stuff I guessed). He was probably just making sure I didn’t steal the phone or anything. I felt slightly insulted but shrugged it off and walked back out to the bus stop. I hoped that the bus hadn’t come while I was inside. However, after sitting there for another ten minutes, it looked that way. I began looking around. I noticed a sign across the street that said "Trinity Railway Express" with an arrow pointing ahead.
Trinity Railway Express was the name of the train I saw when I checked out Union Station, I remembered. I started following the sign until I saw another one and kept following the signs for about two blocks and ended up at the train station. After finding out when the next train to Union Station was, I sat down to wait for it.
I got on the train easy enough and enjoyed watching the passing scenery out the window. It was easy getting the rest of my way home, but what an experience the day was.