After the Train
You’re sitting on a gray vinyl bench by the railroad tracks watching the grass grow, your only luggage is the clothes on your back. You had to report to this gathering dressed in something other than skin despite the heat, then of course you forgot your phone. The critters in the woods on the other side of the tracks could care less about dress code, though if it were honey or blood you were coated with, they might have trotted over for a sniff. And maybe they’re staying away on account of all that anger you wear beneath your skin, the kinda shit that eats you up and makes you weaker and sicker and unaware that the train clickety-clack has disappeared around the bend.
With no one around, the anger boomerangs back at you, all too happy to continue chomping on your liver and your heart, leaving your eyes to roam around the display of seating tossed every which way on the platform — the aftereffect of the passenger cars having been gutted to make extra room on board. The critters have all receded into the woods. They got no reason to respond to bullhorns held by guys in riot gear bellowing “get on board” or “get with the program” meant for humans, most of whom willingly climb on board in anticipation of an avalanche of likes on social media. The ones that hesitate or ask questions or say, “Hell, no,” get shoved and kicked and pounded with clubs and batons and tear gas and pepper spray and stun grenades and rubber bullets aimed at their eyes, and they don’t even have yellow vests, and the yellow jackets fled the scene with the rest of the critters that try not to be extinct.
When everybody is on the train, pale geriatric guys in dark suits and red power ties and squeaky leather shoes with a direct line to the king’s ear (or whoever sits atop your social order) arrive on the platform and tell the guys in riot gear that they also have to board the train because someone needs to serve and protect from the people that say hell no, that would steal your anger and your place in society and the good life, even if it means your grimy apartment with the roaches and the clogged up sink. So the guys in riot gear go along and get to be heroes and to trend on social media and all that —
Until the train starts moving and they realize they’re in a cattle car with the windows all boarded up and they’re crammed so close to the rabble they can hear them breathe, but they can’t bend their elbows to draw out their weapons and kill them all — yaysayers and naysayers alike. It’s unbelievably hot in ballistic helmets and tactical gas masks and shields and arm protectors and shin guards and groin protectors amid the silence of the little children no longer screaming as they slowly suffocate in the crush and the old folks passing out standing up and the urine of all demographics trickling down their legs. And it gets worse because unlike the cattle they’re not used to these conditions, they’ve never lived crammed together in large fenced yards with the omnipresent stench of moldy hay and fetid water and dung and mud, and they always had the option to escape into bright rectangles that told them stories about how wonderful life is for everyone that gets on board. But they can still sense, like the cattle, that they aren’t in a good place and also like the cattle they have no idea if they’re gonna get slaughtered when they arrive.
And as the only one left behind, you have to wonder if you’re invisible, there’s no other way to explain why they didn’t make you get on board. You thought they were looking at you but maybe they looked through you so they didn’t see your puckered face as you squinted at the light, and because you’re not on social media, it didn’t register. It’s all rather confusing so you linger on the bench, free to choose among all the seats that got ripped out of the train and are now scattered on their face or their ass all over the empty platform. You don’t know what you’ll do if no one’s coming back even though when they’re around, they hide behind four walls and dark shades. Perhaps you should offer yourself as prey to the large carnivores if they haven’t all been hunted down to protect the cattle from perishing on the pasture before reaching the slaughterhouse because people don’t want to share the kill.
You can’t tell how much time has elapsed, just that the grass has grown real tall since the last train chugged out of sight. The railway tracks have all but vanished under the green. Hard to say if the odd glimmer reaching your eyes is from the rails or a figment of the imagination. It’s getting dark and you just lie back and look up at the big open sky and you recall when you were little riding on the flatbed of your dad’s clunky pickup and staring at the dusk as the truck bounced on dirt roads riddled with potholes, and you vowed that you’d catch the exact moment when night fell, when daylight gave up the struggle and let the darkness reign. But the night tricked you every time, always barging in the moment you blinked. And you don’t recall when you got home and if your mom scooped you up into her arms and where your dad parked the truck and why your friends and everyone you’ve ever known all moseyed into the night, all gone.
May 2021.
