The Sheriff walks from his car towards the tracks, stops, whistles, and looks over at the old feller on the porch. He sits rocking in a chair, a shotgun across his lap. The pair of them are looking at a train, fully derailed, it's engine narrowly missing the old feller's house. A picture of absolute carnage. The dusty earth is torn up, the sleepers and tracks splintered and bent, and the majority of the carriages lie on their side, cooking in the sun.
'Now what did that?' says the Sheriff, shaking his head.
'Moles,' the old feller says.
The Sheriff scoffs. He tilts his hat up to scratch his temple and thinks about how he's going to set about shifting this mess.
Then the earth begins to rumble. Violently. The Sheriff has to set his stance wide to keep himself from falling over.
'Jesus Christ, what is that?!' he yells.
The old man squints and cocks the shotgun. 'Moles,' he says.
Paddy Dobson
26th June 2021