Like A Window In Your Heart

We were somewhere between Denver and Lincoln. Kansas I think. The country was flat and we had been passing by and through small towns, plains and fields since I had woken up. It was hot.

Freight trains often stop in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes when they are stopped another train will pass by going the same direction. Do they pull over on a side track? To this day I don’t know how it works. Oh well, who cares? All I know is our train was not moving and I was thirsty. Tommy looked a little gaunt himself.  Before we left Denver he had raided the dumpster behind McDonalds.  As a result, my friend spent a good part of the night with his ass hanging over the side of our grain-car. I had bought my hamburgers and slept well. 

Near the tracks was a community swimming pool. I was filthy, and how I wanted to go for a swim. Just outside the entrance to the pool was a soda machine. I hopped down and walked over there and got Tommy and me a couple sodas. There was a teenage girl  lifegaurding, and she looked as refreshing as the pool. So I leaned against the fence and drank mine right there, looking at her and the water; Wishing I could stay longer.  I heard the brakes release on the train. That was my cue to get back on board.

Those plains were exotic to me. I had never been East. I sat and swayed with the movement of our train; Looking out at forever.  I could see no mountains. The light was different, the sky was different and the way things looked was different. Over my own smell and that of the train’s diesel, there was the scent of the country we were riding through. It was all new. It was surreal.  

Whenever trains go through a town or come to a city they slow down. As the sun was setting we approached Lincoln, slowing  to a crawl. In the dusk I saw unexplainable lights next to the tracks. Small lights that floated in mid-air, moving along with us until they would suddenly vanish, only to re-appear seconds later. There was maybe a dozen of them. I was hypnotized.

Seeing the wonder in my eyes, Tommy put his hand on my shoulder: “They’re fireflies Blake.”

I had never seen fireflies before, and nothing could have been more magical.

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