Tracks

As far as we've come, we're right where we started, care to comment? The answer to that is predicated on how little we know about everything we're sensing, and the sum total of everything we're sensing can be expressed in a nice neat little formula that has already been hard-coded into most spreadsheet applications.

In other words, what's happened has already happened, and you are one expensive daughter. The policy on your life says nothing about an accidental death by commuter railroad smothering, which is why when I ascended the platform, still encrusted in commuter delirium, and I noticed all the children your age playing on and on the tracks for about half the platform, I wasn't particularly moved. I must say, in retrospect, that I wiped a glob of mucus from the corners of my eyes in order to believe them. There they were, exploring the tracks like rats—defiant and self-assured—there was no sense of danger in their motions. So fine. I turned to the middle-aged woman that I usually complain about the world to and said, "Look at this...I thought playing on railroad tracks was a nighttime thing. At this hour with all the trains they better really be careful." Something pierced through her commuter delirium but dissipated into the frenzied heart racing realization that the 7:29 was coming and the little rodents were still playing with the tracks. Our vantage point was from the easternmost part of the platform, the kids were playing from the middle of the platform to the westernmost part, so really, we had front-row seats. The train barreled along and the kids confidently assumed their train-passing postures. They hit the tracks hard, flattened themselves out right between the two steel beams that the trains' wheels moved along. This morning there were a few too many children on the tracks and not all of them had a spot as the train passed me and my commuter colleagues. As the train started grinding its brakes everyone had found a safe spot, but right as the train started passing over the easternmost expanse of outstretched children, a few of the kids got up and started running to safety underneath the platform ledge, a place which, if I had to choose, would choose instead of letting the train pass directly over me. The train mauled the late-decision-switching children. The momentum of the front of the train plus their lateral motion pushed them forcefully against the platform edge and dragged their faces against it, eventually sweeping them down underneath the train, at which point their bones fleetingly lifted the train up before the weight of the train flattened the bones and stretched their flesh over the steel beams that their friends were hiding adjacent to.

A railroad spokesperson came rushing over to me and began yelling: "How dare you! How dare you you coward! How could you let those children play on the tracks and not say anything!? Look what you have done! The tragedy! The poor children the poor poor children. How dare you! You are scum you how dare you oh oh the poor children...I hope you know how responsible you are for this catastrophe!"

My friend was reaching into her purse for her medium to medium-far distance spectacles. She was saying something about her employer's vision plan and how rotten healthcare in the country was and something about how she can never find her glasses and something about how she hopes her husband didn't accidentally mistake the glasses for his own.

I wondered whether or not the spokesperson had been hired by the new railroad executive, whose professed first priority was railroad safety. She had instilled in me something I don't think I would have developed without her fervent urging: if you see children playing on railroad tracks during peak hours, advise them not to change their mind about their safe position beneath the train as it arrives at a station.

"It is wonderful," I thought as I went back downstairs to my car, "that my wife works to support the family in addition to my job." There was a procession of emergency service vehicles making sharp turns and half-skiddy bee-lines towards the elevated platform. A man with a briefcase and a really nice suit stopped me and said, "We're never going to get out of this lot, do you want to get something to eat while they peel the kids' bodies off the tracks?"

I really had my heart set on the egg omelettes at work, but since it didn't look like I was going to work today, I said, "Ya know what, I really can't, I think I'm going to call my wife and see if she can take off, maybe we'll go the mall or something." In the back of my mind I had something else in mind. Two helicopters were circling above me now and I looked up and shielded my eyes with my right hand that was holding my briefcase. One of the choppers was from the local news station and the other copter had a big white cross on its all-red body. I squinted and thought to myself, "God, that woman was really lacing into me before about the kids. She's totally right about that too. How did I not say anything? How did the rest of the people on that platform all just stand there? She was right I feel awful."


At the diner where my wife works someone burst through the door and yelled, "some kids got hit by a train at the station, turn on the news!" She was cleaning a plastic tabletop, about to set it up for another customer. She turned her head towards the television above the hostess' station. It had reached MSNBC by now and they were crediting the local news channel's chopper for the live aerial footage. She reached into her pocket to answer her cellphone because I was calling her to see if she could take off work. As she interrogated me about what had happened and I offered her everything I saw, I pulled up to the diner and saw her on the phone through the glass windows. As we made eye contact I turned the car off and stepped outside and looked up at the chopper and back at the TV in the diner when I noticed that the local news station's helicopter feed had a bit of a delay on it. I thought maybe I should let them know about that but figured that they already knew it.

I went in to ask her if she could take off and she said, "Why don't you sit down so you can eat something?" I really had my heart set on the egg omelettes at work, but since it didn't look like I was going to work today, I said, "Ya know what, honey, if you can't take off I think I'm just going to go home and be there when you get back, the kids stay late at school today right?" She nodded. So I left her there and with a plan in mind I drove home in a hurry.

As I drove home the commuter delirium began washing in and out all over the windshield of my Prius. I saw railroad car windows from the early 20s and some eerie blue light from outside mixing with the humid yellow-greens of the white-but-soiled wallpaper. I was overcome with a desire to change my outfit, especially my jacket. Then everything blurred and became vibrant. Some bright teal and ruby red absorbed my delirium and drew dewy lines vertically through my field of vision. I needed a Splash. I pulled the car over and put the seat down horizontally and just lay there on the side of the road, listening to all the helicopters and the sirens.

My phone rang as everything above me (the interior of the roof of my Prius) kaliedoscoped in felty quad-mirrors of Cuban blues and yellow-greens and teals and reds from Florida. The heat and humidity of everything was rushing all over me so I decided to put my hazards on and finally look to see who was calling me. It was my daughter and my wife. One call from each. One call from each four times, the thing said, I think. I picked it up and dialed 4444 when I heard an enormous explosion.

My delirium and lethargy vanished in an instant as I sprung to a seated position. I looked in the directions I thought the explosion came from but all around me I couldn't see anything. I stepped out of my car and dialed my daughter's cell phone. She said she stayed home from school today because she wasn't feeling well. Great, I thought, there goes that. I told her to take the chicken breasts out of the freezer and put them in a medium saucepan filled with a little water in the sink. She asked me where I was (probably to see if I would do it), and I told her I wasn't coming home.

I didn't really know where I was going.