One-Week Story, Part Two

Tuesday afternoon and I want to blow the train up. A man ran over my foot with his fancy suitcase and the baby next to me was sick and there were only apologies when all of it was cleaned up, no soap. There is no soap anywhere on this train and a baby was sick next to me. That automatically implies it was sick all over me. The entrance is crowded and I cannot change now because there is no place to open a bag, three stations have gone by and the number of unreserved passengers is unbelievable. Three stations ago I had clean clothes and unimpaired eyesight. Now there are legs in hawaii chappals dangling from the berths above, and subtle catcalls and raucous songs, and I am getting off at the next station if it kills me.

I told you I liked trains. If I told you I first fell in love on one you'd have looked the other way and that would've been it. No one says things like that anymore, no one believes them either. If it is a story from long ago one keeps it wrapped up and hidden, and if it is worth telling one looks for an occasion. There never was one because we spoke about trains in a depressingly glitzy atmosphere, we looked at photographs in a gallery and used big words. Now my right shoulder smells like it never belonged to a world in which galleries existed, and I am silently furious because I was sincere when I said I liked trains.

Only you laughed and turned away from the wall, and said, then you've never been on one.