Stylistic Imitation of J.G. Ballard

The passing landscape outside the train window slowly melted small pastoral towns into imposing suburbs, and the soft rain would not relent. As the cabin-passenger peered into the soft grey mist, he could see streetlamps lining the roads, heralding the entry of lonely automobiles into the foreboding twilight. In the row across from him, a small child began to wail of exhaustion or some other useless complaint, and the soft murmuring of the cabin was interrupted by shrill nonsensical words. Other passengers began to shift and complain, peering slyly over newspapers to give disapproving looks to whomever was thought to be the child’s mother. All of these things brought up within the cabin-passenger a stark sense of harrowing unease, and he turned to look out into the grey light for a sign of sanity. He looked out to the wreck-yard, the Ruin that lay half hidden beneath the central overpass into the city. It would be appropriate to say that The Ruin, inhabited with heaps of once-beloved clutter, would be a place to consider the desolate feeling that comes with finding out you’ve been all used up. Strangers would come to the Ruin to sit and talk about the world was bound to want to taste them and spit them back out. Most preferred to ignore the spark that could re-ignite the past; despite their malcontent natures, they were not ready for the world to change, nor could they see a path to any sort of crippled redemption.