Slow Train
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Train moves slow through English countryside. Thirty and six years old, applies to me. Brazilian beer in hand.
Trees fields cloudscapes blue sky, pass by. Or slide along, maybe, across a TV screen w/uncanny resemblance to a train window, down to the dirty spots. I trust that it’s not a TV screen, that it actually is a train window. But that’s not truth, that’s just me trusting things. Just me choosing a version of reality that I think will accord most closely with everyone else’s. After all, not a thing to argue about, is it. Not worth having a “row” about, now is it.
That dumb kid in seat across aisle is all excited about his dumb success at some dumb computer-type game. What a dumbass.
Ha, just kidding. I would never call a kid dumb, they’re all precious little treasures from God’s own sweet bosom.
But still, c’mon, I mean a lot of them are total retards.
Ha, just kidding.
Anyways don’t worry, I have very strong feelings about justice and loyalty, bravery and virtue, and that this is a train carrying me from one place to another place and that I am looking at things out of the train window. That I am drinking yellow liquid from a clear glass bottle from a place called Brazil. That glass is a hard substance and a bottle is a thing that holds other things, quite often liquids. That one can somehow pour liquids into one’s own body, perhaps through an opening in one’s body called the mouth. So you see, nothing to worry or fret about with me, as these are all things I have very strong feelings about.
Oh shit whoops I dangled that poor preposition. Fuck I’m so so sorry if you’re a language purist you’re probably puking your brains out right now, gnashing your teeth in your own private language-hell. So, so sorry to have taken a big shit all over the head of your adorable newborn baby, is what it must feel like that I just did to you. It wasn’t on purpose seriously I promise. I really did mean to say “as these are all things about which I have very strong feelings,” but I wasn’t paying enough attention as the words came out of my pen, and so I accidentally dangled that goddamn motherfucking preposition.
Sorry.
At least Satan didn’t rape every single person in the whole world. Think of it that way and you’ll probably feel a lot better about the whole thing.
But wait.
You probably want more of a story?
I’ve found that, generally, people prefer stories. As opposed to just splattering words across the paper, I mean. So anyways hm, okay, hm, okay, hm…a story. Okay I’ll try.
A thirty-six year old male human being was sitting on a train, inside the train sitting in a moderately comfortable seat, next to the window. The train was moving, rolling and sliding and slightly rocking along the rails. Outside, what he saw through the window as the train rolled along, was quite pretty. Green trees, fields and pastures sometimes dotted with cows grazing, swishing their tails lazily as they munched grass. Big white clouds piled high in the blue sky, sunlight warm and soft-looking shadows.
The male human being drank a Brazilian bottle of beer and looked out the window; thirty-six years’ worth of memories were stored in his mind. Overall he was in, you could say, a good mood. He was an American, and enjoyed (mostly) being in this foreign country. Nature always moved him, he always appreciated time to reflect, and traveling on a train with a seat next to the window through open country, well, there you go.
He was going away from his sister and brother-in-law and two adorable little nieces, all of whom he loved very much. He was going towards adventure in the great big teeming city of London with his good friend, and he loved both adventure and his good friend, also very much. So, all things considered, and added up, yes of course he was in, sure, let’s call it a good mood.
In other words, he was aware of the beauty of life and the world, and felt it moving through him. But he also couldn’t help but be aware of mortality and death, and the fading light of youth. And the god-gifted energy burning within his body, and wondering for the umpty-millionth time whether, or not, he was harnessing it well, was employing it correctly, was anywhere close to being on the track of realizing its full true potential.
Maybe yes, and maybe no. Hope and doubt dancing that dance together, over and over again.
Why can’t they just get drunk and fuck already, he thought as the train sped along. Hope fucks Doubt, Doubt gets pregnant, nine months later pops out a baby.
Whoops, he thought to himself; I’m getting off-track again.
Anyways the train sped along, and these were the thoughts he thought, as the beauty of life and the world moved through him.
He looked at the time, and saw that the train would be arriving at his destination, shortly. So he put away his pen and pad of paper and sat patiently, hands folded upon his lap, looking out the window and waiting.
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