The Train Station
This train station is a place where emotions run through everyone that passes through it’s doors. A couple hold each other at the doors. “I’ll miss you”, she breathes into his shoulder. “I’ll miss you too”, he says as he quickly changes the subject. Not due to his lack of sincerity, but because he knows her so well he manages her emotions. “What time will you be in Manhattan?” — “4:15”, she replies. The camera pans to a man who is on the phone with his mother, whose birthday is on mothers day. “I’m..I’m sorry, my train is delayed an hour. There was a terrible accident near Trenton. I’m going to miss your birthday dinner but i’m on the next bus out and I’ll make a dinner every night, for each year you’ve been alive, I promise!”. It’s mother’s day. Our camera man swings towards the sound of stampeding footsteps. A woman in athletic gear (for comfort not for athletics) is BOOKING towards what seems to be her fiance/husband. She leaps onto his torso like a starfish and is making a joyful shrieking sound. “You look different! — You better have some good pasta recipes.” The camera flips towards a middle aged woman crying on the phone. She’s making responses that are only said when someone has died. The camera man reads her emotions and determines it’s someone very close to her. Her mother, maybe.
The camera man (Caman) used to have these thoughts about travel. Thoughts about how taking a train, a flight or a long drive even, is the most serene thing you can do as a human being. If you are traveling from point A to point B, everything that happens in the middle is just getting to your destination. It’s the only thing you need to worry about. Nothing that happens outside makes its way into those train cars. There is nothing you can do but get to where your going. It’s where the best thinking is done. Caman pulls his espresso to his nose where he indulges in the aroma before taking the first sip.
5:53pm. 25 minutes until arrival at Penn Station.
He shifts between books, music, newspapers, Netflix and attempting to sleep at a furious pace. Like he needs to get it all in during the duration of the trip. He remembered thinking that if he just rode a train across north america he would build up enough knowledge to do anything he wanted. The things he could learn! By St. Louis: How to assemble a car engine. Carlsbad: 2 new languages that seem similar but have formal/informal distinctions. Vancouver: Urban agriculture development with specializations in vertical irrigation. Omaha: musical theory as a basis for politics. Idaho: growing and harvesting potatoes. Denver: growing and harvesting marijuana.
6:01pm. 17 minutes until arrival at Penn Station.
Caman’s dog died today. It’s Mother’s Day. The death was initiated by a phone call approval to his Mother that cared for the old pup. She was stuck in this feeling that she needed to do something and was caring for the dog and his old bones for years longer than an average person would care for a dog. She treated it well and probably gave the dog more vitamins then she every gave Caman. “I just don’t know what to do — How do I know if it’s the right decision?”, she asks. Caman explains that 16 years is a long time for a dog…but it is a dog. “HE is a dog”, he corrects himself. “He’s our dog. But you can’t hold on to a living thing longer than is appropriate. Everyone has a shelf life and once I can’t stand on my own, I don’t know if i would want to live anymore….a silence…and I have a Bachelor’s Degree. Did you get the flowers I sent?”
6:18pm. arrival at Penn Station.
There’s a similar buzz to the last station but something is different. How can 100 miles change a collective of people so much? Caman checks his watch and was supposed to check in at his father’s house asap after arrival. Instead he pans over to a group of friends, seemingly just hanging out in the station with no bags or luggage. They are all holding hands in one big line and handing out fliers to passersby. A girl with a gold tooth grabs the camera man. “HEY!” she shouts in his face. “Do you want to be saved?” and handed him a white sheet of paper with a poem on it. A short poem. It read:
Your ambition is gold and you dream about love
One that can keep you from worrying so much
You’re just bones kid, don’t even think twice
What you see in the day is gone overnight
But keep breaking the mold and leaving your mark
Because what’s a mark in the light is a mark in the dark
