This is just an odd little story from my life. And there’s a bit of backstory to get to the story.
I grew up on a farm and
one of my favorite things to do was to go for a walk around the pasture to just
let my mind wander and to think on things.
But I could only do this during the day because, well, pastures can be
uneven and filled with things you don’t want to step in. This wouldn’t be a problem, but I’m also a
bit of a night owl, and there are plenty of nights I would have liked to wander
and think on things. So when I went to
college, I was happy to find these things called sidewalks. I would often head out late at night to
wander around town.
At one point in my
wanderings, I came across this intersection of a couple quiet streets. The memory of the desk scene from Dead Poets
Society came to mind about looking at things from a different perspective. I had crossed many streets, but I’d never
stopped in the middle to look around, or stood in the middle of an
intersection. So I did, and it does give
an odd view of the world. As I said,
these were quiet streets, and the few times a car did turn my way, I had plenty
of time to get out of the way, so I was never in any danger.
A few years later, I got
an apartment in a town I’d never been to before. A few blocks down from my apartment, there
was a train track. One block over there was
a bridge over the track, and a couple of times I managed to be there right when
a train went below me, which was interesting in its own way. Now, this wasn’t a main track, I think it
might have just been a sideline that went to a factory, or something, so there
was only one or two trains of maybe a dozen cars a week. Not being a busy train track, they didn’t
have gates to block the road. Meaning,
whenever a train came through, it came to a stop, and the police or maybe just the
conductor on the train would make sure traffic stopped and then the train would
slowly go through the intersection. I think
I only saw how they did it once or twice, and this was over twenty years ago,
so my memory on this detail is a little fuzzy.
Anyway, not long after I
moved, I went for a walk late at night.
I went over the bridge, and went down a block or so, before turning and
heading back up the street my apartment was on.
At some point during this, I remembered standing in the middle of an
intersection, and I realized I’d never stood in the intersection of a road and
a train track. Now, this street wasn’t so
quiet, so as I walked towards the intersection, I kept looking over my shoulder
to make sure no cars were coming. I
walked out into the street, and stopped in the middle of the road and the
middle of the train track. I looked down
the street the way I had come for a few seconds, then turned ninety degrees to
the right and looked up the tracks.
After a few seconds, I turned ninety degrees and looked up the
street. A few seconds later, I turned
ninety degrees and THERE’S A FUCKING TRAIN FIFTY FEET FROM ME!
About thirty seconds
later, once my heartbeat had slowed to somewhat normal, I just started
laughing. The train was parked there, it
wasn’t going anywhere. The reason I hadn’t
noticed it, walking up the streets, was because I kept checking over my
shoulder for cars, and there was a building that blocked just enough of the
view that you couldn’t see the train until you were almost at the tracks.
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