The Train Today in the Country

I was very taken by a train today.

We were on a country road when the railroad gate came down. I got out of the truck to get a better view of the train which I could hear coming but couldn’t see. And then it rounded the corner with its big healthy train horns blowing.

I thought how does a person get run over by a train when they are so loud. This has happened in a part of town near here. Every once in a while, somebody gets run over by a train. And you have to wonder, did they not hear the horns? Were they under the influence? Did they just stand there waiting?

The train could swerve, I thought, because this is my habit, catastrophizing. Imagining swerving trains that derail in my lap while I stand there surprised and hapless. I wonder if I would see it coming and have enough time to get back in the truck, which would do what? Give me my husband’s comfort while we were smashed?

There was elaborate graffiti on the train. You could look at that as defacing someone’s property or you could consider it mobile art. The designs are so elaborate and colorful that one is hard put not to admire the effort, the conceptualization and execution of a vision, probably with serious time pressures. They do have security guards and whatnot at train depots, right?

The train was long, but I stood there in front of our truck waiting for its end. “I’m waiting for the caboose,” I told my husband. He nodded. The caboose is always red and there is always a person waving. I remember this.

But there was no caboose. They don’t have cabooses anymore?

There was no one waving but I still liked the train an awful lot.