Rolling Reflections

// Derrick Tyson //

I didn't write much while I was actually on the train, coming here to Portland, even though that was my intent. But I did jot down my impressions before embarking:

// April 30th // 9:21 PM //

I'm waiting at the Amtrak station in Emeryville, on one of the outside metal benches that overlook the tracks. Some kind of empty freight train is rolling along, slow and endless. The night is beautiful. Glowing city lights, on the platform as well as farther off, turn the sky a depthless indigo, by virtue of outshining the stars, stars which I cannot see but whose presence I assume. The air smells neutral, but it's soft and full of the sound of crickets. I didn't know that Emeryville had such a sonorous insect population.

The empty train has run out. A man behind me was pacing, and he's stilled himself. When his steps scraped behind me, I was alert like a prey animal, like a shivering rabbit, purely out of evolutionary instinct. Unknown activity behind one's back is unsettling.

My sister and my father drove me here, to the station. [Her] driving scares the hell out of me. She's new to it--just got her license. That means jerky stops, lagging turn-correction, and plenty of free-floating anxiety for the driver as well as the passengers. I'm glad my dad came, because he stabilized both of our nerves. All a parent has to do is be there. Another primal response is how soothed I feel by his tired affection, even his tired neutral presence. I don't know if [my sister] has the same response--they aren't easy with each other.

A train is arriving, not mine. A metallic voice announced this, listing a number and a destination. Now people are coming out of doors, mostly looking unsure. The train hooted, vibrating in my lungs although I did not emit the sound. I almost jumped. It rumbles constantly, I guess because of its engine. The brakes (I think) make the machine sigh, a whooshing release of air.

[...]

My train's arrival is supposed to be in an hour. Actually it's supposed to be in thirty minutes, but the updated prediction stretches further than the original one. I don't begrudge the delay terribly. I didn't expect this to be an accurate way to travel, at least not temporally. I wonder, though, if I can keep writing for an hour. Will I keep having things to say? I suppose I could turn to fiction, but I suspect that the only stories in me are my own.

The air is cooling down, enough that I donned my cardigan and my scarf. The crickets, or cicadas, or whatever they are, have not ceased singing. Do they keep up the chorus all night? I don't spend enough time in "the small hours" to remember. I can imagine the spindly creatures making their hypnotic melody in a cathedral, lined up like nuns. Parishioners would shrink from a choir of bugs, no matter how pious or talented.

You're only a writer if you write. I want to be a writer, and my best talent is putting words together, so I have to write. I have to build the habit, stretch my literary muscles beyond the expectations of their tissues. I have to rip the bonds between cells, and let them heal, and then rend their connections again. Until they are tough as scars.

// May 1st // 9:51 AM //

I passed the night on this train, or perhaps the night drained out of me. The coach accommodations are like a slightly roomier version of their airborne equivalents. It's possible to sleep, fitfully, but I couldn't sink into a deep resting state.