Train by M. Foote

It was flurrying. Snow days are some of the best for taking pictures because of the light. In photography, the hour after the sun rises and the hour before sun set are called the “golden hours” because the diffusion of light makes everything more colorful and rich without the harshness of direct sunshine. The snow does that too, hiding what it covers but illuminated everything above it.

He was sitting next to me, a million miles away. Starring out the window while the scenery slide by in a white blur. The conductor took our tickets. With two clicks, he punched them.

We were the only ones in our car. Like every Amtrak train the seats were blue with a collection of odd stains. It was very quiet, like a house before alarm clocks start to ring. I could hear him breathe in and out, and I was acutely aware of his chest rising and falling ever so slightly under his sweater. Light poured through the windows, illuminating him. If I had my camera I would have stopped hearts with this image. His hair was just like it always was, a messy pile on top of his head. His freckles were stark against his skin. My eyes strayed to his neck, thick and defined above his collar.

He had no eyes for me, only for the fields out the window. He watched the country as I watched him. He was speeding by, a blur. He was moving so fast I couldn’t quite see him before he was gone.

The snow was falling and each flake was something I wanted to tell him, but it was gone, behind us, in the past before we even had time to see it. Every flake made my heart ache like a veteran’s knee when it rains. This must be, I thought, the beginning and end of all my sorrow.

We had so much in common, he and I. After a while more went unspoken than didn’t. Slowly rules had started to govern each exchange. We sped down the tracks and all the things I wanted to say couldn’t be separated from the things I couldn’t say. We had somehow lost each other in all the conversations we weren’t having. What had brought us together, the ability to let so much go unsaid, was now a silent barrier between us.

I wanted his fascination with the fields to end. I wanted him to look at me. I wanted to lay my head on his chest and listen to his heartbeat instead of the rumble of the tracks. I wanted my camera so I could capture him in this moment, while I still had him.

But instead, the train kept going, the snow kept falling, he kept looking out the window, and I kept wishing that things would go back to the way they never were, the way they were never going to be.