just looking for a couple quick sketches to go along with this thing that I wrote; wondering if anyone's interested. any sort of style is cool, please message!
Thanks.
Train
A stray dog boarded a train to escape the winter’s cold. He curled up in some newspapers to keep warm and held his paws over his ears to drown out the commotion of the passengers. A girl got on at the next stop and asked the dog where he was headed.
“Anywhere,” he replied. “I’m a wayward mutt, never content with where I am.”
“Then I would bet that you’ve traveled to lots of different places,” she said.
“Yes, but most of them were in my head.”
“Would you tell me a story then, Mr. Dog?” the girl asked. “I’m on my way to heaven, and the ride is so long…”
“Alright then. There was once a friendly cow that loved to make milk. She befriended a tiny seedling that was sprouting up in a rocky place where few plants prospered. A baddie came to steal milk and fatally injured the nice cow, who lay down over her friend the seedling so that her body might fertilize the ground. Thanks to the cow, the seedling grew into a massive tree. The tree would spout fresh milk from its buds in the spring and butter seeped from its knotholes in the summer. One day, a girl came across the tree and made friends with it; she drank its milk and ate its butter, leaving folded-paper animals by the tree trunk as thanks, deeply grateful to find such a friend in a barren land. She lived there happily for a few years, until the baddie came back. The baddie wanted to uproot the tree and bring it home with him. The girl told him that if the tree were moved from the grave of the friendly cow, its magic would disappear. She died trying to save the tree from the baddie, who uprooted it all the same, and it too died instantly. The tree shrivelled up and it all evaporated save for one tiny seed, which fell onto the spot where the girl had fallen. From the seed grew a new tree. In the summer, its leaves would fold themselves into animal shapes and fall into the hands of passers by. And all year round, it would devour any baddie who came near.”
The train stopped, and the little girl thanked the stray dog for the story.
“I think I’ll get off here,” she said.
“But we’re not at heaven yet,” the dog told her.
“I thought about it and decided to make myself content where I was.”
She disembarked. At the next stop, a little boy boarded the train and sat beside the stray dog. The boy asked the dog if this was the right train to take to heaven.
“So I’m told,” he replied. “But it’s a long way to go.”
“I sure am bored,” sighed the boy. “How about a story?”
“Okay, here’s one: Once upon a time there was a sandy anthill. Of the million or so ants that lived there, only one eschewed his responsibility, resenting that he was expected to labour for the good of the others since birth, when he didn’t much like the other ants and they didn’t like him. He fled from the hill and endured the tribulations involved in facing a hostile world alone. The stray ant found shelter in the house of a child and hid among his bed sheets for warmth at night. Once he dared to explore the boy’s scalp, but before he could escape, the child awoke. Without knowing the ant was on him, he went about his day normally, watching cartoons and drawing with crayons. The stray ant tagged along with the boy for a few days, fascinated by his carefree way of living. Then the ant decided to return to his anthill and report to the others about the ways of humans. They were sceptical at first, but became interested once they watched the ant draw in the dirt, and applied all their organizational resources to creating these pictures on a massive scale. They only drew ants. When the former stray showed them cartoons on television through the child’s window, they became so enthralled that all upkeep of the colony was halted. When bedtime came for the boy, the cartoons were switched off, and the ants fell into disarray. The stray returned to the boy’s scalp, and lived there pretending to be him for the rest of his days.”
The train stopped and the young listener got up, petting the stray dog.
“Thanks. Maybe I don’t need to go to heaven today…” he mused. “I think I’ll get off here.”
“But we’re almost there.”
“Exactly,” the boy said with a smile, and left.
The dog was alone then for a thousand years. Rocked into a hazy half-sleep by the swaying train, he squeezed his eyes shut against the buzzing fluorescent bulbs overhead. The muddy shoeprints on the tile floor dried in permanently and the stagnant air was a constant torment to the dog’s sensitive snout. Inside, loneliness was eroding him. He dreamt each night of being hunted.
At the end of a thousand years, the train reached heaven. The doors slid open and in stepped a white wolf, with icy blue eyes that could extinguish brushfires or calm volcanoes with a glance. Off the dirty stray, the wolf could smell self-pity. Off the immaculate white coat of the wolf, the dog could not smell a thing, so he forced his eyelids apart to get a look at the newcomer. Instantly he felt an entire frigid sea crash over his soul, perceiving in the wolf’s eyes the aura of the ancient glaciers that carved the world, cold as the unexplored depths of the cosmos. His spine locked up and his blood froze in his veins. Awestricken, the dog’s breath failed him for a moment, and as he regained it the wolf took a seat across from him. The doors closed and the train kept rolling.
“Good morning,” she said.
“Good morning,” said he. “You’re leaving heaven?”
“Yes, I am leaving heaven.”
“Why is that?” asked the dog.
“To spread it around,” she replied. “Where are you going? Where are you from?”
“I’m going nowhere. I came from the land of baddies. They wanted me to become a baddie, and were shocked to hear that I preferred the way I am. They’d have hunted me down, so I became a vagabond.”
“Why not just enter heaven?”
“I don’t believe in it, so it’d be living a lie.”
“Is that better than dying in truth? There’s more hope for the world than you think.”
“Evidently. I’d never have guessed there was a wolf with the compassion to leave heaven for the sake of everybody else. Where are you headed specifically?”
“I’ll get off at each stop and only get back on once things there improve.”
“But the next stop is hell itself,” the dog warned. “You’ve got your work cut out for you.”
She smiled in a way that robbed him of the ability to doubt her.
“People are worth it,” she said.
“People? I think a person is worth it. I just can’t have a meaningful relationship with a community, where everyone knows each other a little bit, and they’re happy with that. But I think they’re really strangers to each other if they never sit down one-on-one and have real conversations. ”
“Well, you’re lucky then, because it will take a thousand years for this train to reach hell. Do you know any stories?"
