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Inspired byPicture yourself on a train in a station Use just the character of the uploaded image 1. Now observe the image 2 closely. Do not attempt to preserve its original history, composition, or meaning. Use its visual elements as ingredients for an entirely new story. Select the most interesting elements, detach them from their original roles, and assign them new purposes, relationships, and meanings. Then, invent a surprising event that connects them—something that has already happened or is about to happen. Alter scale, position, function, perspective, or physical logic whenever doing so makes the story more interesting. Contradicting the original image is permitted. Create a surreal, minimalist, poetic, and meaningful scene that represents a pivotal moment in this new story. The result must evoke the image of a story never seen before. Do not illustrate the original image. Do not explain it. Transform its ingredients into something unexpected. View from inside a stopped train, through a wide open carriage door. Use only the character from Image 1 as the girl with kaleidoscope eyes, preserving her silhouette and distinctive features. Two plasticine porters in looking-glass ties flank an iron turnstile. The girl appears between them just as the station clock drops its minute hand into her palm. She slides it into the turnstile like a key. At the first click, the ties reflect a departure that hasn’t happened yet. Beyond the gate, an indigo carriage hangs upright and a loose ladder folds itself into a track, one rung at a time. Catch the porters looking down at their ties as the girl looks straight into our carriage. Weathered paper grain, burnt-orange light, chalk white, ink black, and spare, dreamlike geometry. No text.
I was on a train eating an egg sandwich when a girl came to the turnstile with two daisies for eyes. Every time she blinked, the petals rearranged themselves. I had the feeling she could look at the same thing all day and never see it twice.
“Did a minute come through here?” she said.
Two porters stood on either side of her. They had red striped ties and no faces. One of them checked his watch.
“Which minute?” I asked.
“One-oh-one. My mother waved to me in it. I was looking for my ticket.”
Outside the train, a blue cupboard on wheels was making its way up a little blue railway that curved into the air. It had the sort of door you could open in your own kitchen without thinking about it. Up there it looked like a very brave door.
The girl held up her hand. Something black and small dropped into it. It was the long hand of the station clock.
“That ought to do it,” she said, and slipped it into the turnstile.
The machine gave a little click. The cupboard came down the track, bumping gently over each blue tie. When it reached the platform, the door swung open.
Inside, a woman stood at a kitchen window with one hand raised. With the other she was holding a piece of toast. There was butter on it all the way to the corners, the way you do it when you have time.
The girl raised her hand again.
They waved to each other until the toast was cold.
Then the cupboard shut its door and went back up the track. One porter took a handkerchief out of his breast pocket. He held it where his face would have been.
The girl sat beside me. I gave her the other half of my sandwich.
“Did she see you?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “She put her toast down.”
