I Would Never Return.
I’ve always been drawn to train tracks. Train tracks provide the illusion that there’s something new and beautiful, somewhere better than wherever I am.
So I walked down a berm from the dilapidated town to the tracks, still too detox-drugged to be fully functional, only barely drunk enough to do something stupid.
I’d made the spontaneous and momentous decision that, like a hobo in an ancient movie, I would hop on the next train that passed. I’d ride it until it stopped. I would never return.
I stood on the tracks, smoking a cigarette, planning my haphazard escape. I considered my dismal surroundings: gravel mixed with broken bottles, cigarette butts, crushed food boxes; abandoned industrial buildings with broken windows, graffitied doors, bricks crumbling; a deserted caboose rusting on a parallel track. I imagined the lumbering train and envisioned my one, perfect leap.
I finished my cigarette. I waited.
I didn’t have to wait long. In the distance, I felt, heard – then saw – a freight train rumbling toward me, its yellow engine pulling a line of cars as far as I could see.
I moved back only a couple of steps, needing to be close, ready.
As it rolled closer, the horn blasted. Could the driver see me?
I stepped back another two feet. I was still so close, I could almost touch the tracks. And then, as though I’d had no warning, the train was there – the engine past me, the train cars so close, their wake whooshing with such force, I nearly fell into them.
I crouched in the gravel quickly, trying not to fall, my body low enough to see behind the wheels as they passed. I scanned the row of train cars, looking for my opening, and saw that they were all closed. Would there be a space between cars? They were just boxes with wheels, no Frosty the Snowman slid-open doors through which I could pounce, no easy-grab ladders on their sides.
And the train was going fast – so fast! I’d thought it would be slower, easier, calmer than it was, and instead it was barreling through so rapidly I could see the brown, metal wheels blazing past me – and the noise! The train was so much louder than I’d anticipated, and I was right there, right within its grasp, the clackety-clacks and the squeals deafening as I crouched and watched and waited.
And then I knew, quite suddenly, that it would be easier to throw myself beneath those wheels, just one simple movement away, than it would be to jump onto that train.
I decided it was time to die.
My stomach lurched and churned; I closed my eyes and felt the roar, inhaled the dust and metal, wind whacking my hair into my face. And then I opened my eyes and watched, every fiber of my being alive and knowing that in one split second, I could be gone. The chugging sounds mocked me: You-Should-Be-Gone-You-Should-Be-Gone-You-Should-Be-Gone.
I absorbed every sound, every pounding movement, every smell, staring intently, purposefully, visualizing my death. I thought about my head under the weight of those wheels, my body thrashing and pulled along, a minuscule twig dragged forcefully by the monster that was this train.
I stared straight ahead, deciding, waiting, considering. My stomach never stopped fluttering, aching to the point of nausea. Was it fear? Or knowing?
Suddenly the train was gone, and I was still there. Still crouched beside the tracks. Still alive.
After a few minutes, the rumbling subsided. My shaking subsided.
I stood up and walked back toward the city, alone, with no discernible follow-up plan.