The Train
Date Thursday, March 28, 2024 - 08:22 AM PST
Topic Illustrations


The nights here are long. I ‘ve tried to shorten these nights, to stuff them in my back pocket and make them mine. But back pockets are made by machines and no machine made pocket can hold the night.

I'm finally through a tunnel, and I wonder to myself if I could make the blackness of night as short as that tunnel.
Two people in the next seat try to make love without being noticed. I'm tired, I want to sleep, I cannot however block out the sound of deeply drawn breath or the lapping of tongue on flesh.

I think I will tell them to move to the bathroom. There is more privacy there, and it is more fitting. Move to a place of bodily function. This is most proper. A place of bodily function for a bodily function. Yes, I think to myself as I try and reclaim sleep which has slipped from my grasp for a moment. I shall tell them to go.

I awake and they are no longer in the seat next to me. Sex, the smell, is in the air. I notice a ripple in the passengers. Perhaps they smell it too. Animal, musky, it invades dreams.

I turn in a different direction and contemplate my existence. I've been told it is difficult to question one's existence during sex. One night, I decided to ask.

Once the act had begun I asked "Do you believe you exist?"

Look of confusion.

"How can you ask questions at a time like this?"

I wondered about that for awhile.

The act concludes.

II


"Next stop..." invades my dreams. I sit up. Straighten my hair. Look out the window. I cannot see the world past my reflection.

This is fitting I think. That the world outside is obscured by my image. That when I try to see out, I see myself; this is important I feel. I place my hand to this mirror. The window is cold. The sun is preparing to rise. I can feel it. I cup my hands against the glass to make a dark hole through which I can see the world. This is also fitting, I think to myself.


The sun rises, orange ball in the west. My direction is twisted, my mind does not see the truth. My eye does not process direction. The sun rises in the west. I decide the only thing for it is to return to sleep. I close my eyes.

*******



I look at where I am now. Traveling no longer. I am with her. Her. I contemplate this woman. She has invited me, so I have come. Now, I wonder at my purpose. It does not ease her soul to see me. It does not ease my soul to see her.

We dance about each other. Avoiding one another as we talk. Avoiding one another as we converse.
"How are you?" she asks.

"I'm fine," I say.

She thrusts, "What have you been doing?"

I parry the blow "Not much." A stand still. We move back and examine another again. We begin to circle. It's an old dance we play it well.

"How is your mother?" She asks. A sharp blow if she were to hit. I dodge, grab her arm, shake the wrist, try to loose the sword. "I assume she is well ." "And the rest of your family?" She asks as she twists from my grasp and pushes me away.

"I do not know." I pause for a moment in confusion, almost do not see her next move in time.

"So are you seeing anyone?"

I feel a scratch against my cheek I almost raise my hand to see if my own blood is flowing there.

Am I seeing anyone? I pause. My hand is stayed. It was a deciding move in the dance. I think of answers. I wonder do I exist. It is difficult to question ones existence during sex.

"Are you hungry?" I respond. Yes, I think to myself, if I were to touch my cheek I would come away with blood on my fingers.

The dance ends.


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