Monday, December 5, 2011

A Rough Sketch of a Woman on Her Way Home

She could hear the rattle of the train, the clanking against the tracks. No matter what volume she set her music to, she could hear the rattle of the train as clear as one would hear it if it were the only sound in the vast expanse of the universe, a deafening noise, a consuming sensation, for she could feel it too, traveling up her spine. She could not taste it as far as she could tell. A taste of must and sorrow and emptiness and cigarette smoke lingered on her tongue, and that very well could have been the rattle of the train in her mouth, but she had no empirical evidence with which she could make that claim. She could, however, see the train rattle, or rather, she could see the effects of its rattling. Various men and women and children bounced, ever so slightly, up and down, their hands shaking against the railings onto which they held as if it would steady them.