Around The Bend

     British bloke sitting across from me, good sense of humor (my initial impressions at sit down – accent and all) has been on his laptop with his headphones the entire one and three quarters of an hour we have been crawling along here.   His two brown empty Dogfish IPA bottles, finished with intent in the first eight minutes, sit now on our shared table like apathetic trash or worse. . . ignored kids.

He has just looked up, as from a dream: ‘where was I and where are we ? New Haven ?’

I smile: “no … not even close”

‘Running a bit slow are we?’

I smile and nod.

‘Oh right, damn,’ (he says looking left out the window as we sit stationary near a wooded marsh by a distant field – clearly exasperated) ‘it’s that stupid one track thing where we’re made to wait for the train coming the other way – just bloody stupid if you ask me’

“…the other way at 121 mph…”  I remind.  

It is now I who am looking to the right out the window, the days happenings having just found me along these barren tracks . . .

“combined speed of close to  242 mph . . . each approaching the other with a screaming speed around the bend . . .just ahead.”

. . . it is quiet now and one can almost hear the birds chirp in the branches, just beyond our windows . . .

“Bloody hell (I exclaim) I bet we can make it !!”

Before me, a wide eyed and a slowly nervous . . .’ugh?’ . . .….is suddenly propelled into contagious laughter…and a momentary kinship has been found.

                                                                              Sent from 🚂 📞 …