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Two Trains
It was late in the afternoon
on a Saturday in September,
and I was driving home
from a day of sampling kayaks
on a little lake near Gladstone
just on the other side
of the Mississippi.
There were no hills
for miles and miles,
the day was bright,
and the cornfields
to my right were
starting to turn,
but still green,
their tassles
dancing
in the light.
I was in the midst
of passing a train.
The track was
on the other side
of the cornfield,
maybe half a mile
away, or less.
The thing had a
a tremendous amount
of cars and a pretty good
head of steam.
Not as fast as me,
but it was
out in the open
and making time.
I had smiled
when I first caught
the tail end of it.
A big, grain train
headed west.
The smile was
still on my face
when I looked up
to see
another train
coming from the
other direction,
also hauling ass.
Holy Shit!
I thought.
I’m going to watch
a real, live
trainwreck.
I’ve driven
thousands
and thousands
of miles
on open freeways
all across the midwest
and the rest of the country
and I have never seen
two trains
on the same set
of tracks
heading directly
towards each other.
I began to wonder
if there was something
I could or should do
to stop it from happening.
Is there a number to call
if you are about to witness
two trains plow into
each other?
Is there a wave
or some sort of
hand signal
I could speed ahead
and implement
that might cause
less of a collision?
Did I even want
the collision lessened?
The smile had been
removed from my face
and replaced
by a thoughtful,
but blank,
stare.
What
the hell
is going to
happen
here?
The two trains got closer and closer,
neither of them slowing, both of them
blasting their horns, presumably
at the other. Louder and louder,
closer and closer. I slowed to sixty
or sixty-five, unwittingly and uselessly,
hoping to lessen the impact
by reducing my own momentum.
The moment came and they
didn’t hit. There was no
explosive sound, no massive
sinusoidal ripple down the length
of each train as the engines
buried themselves into
each other.
Apparently there had been
two sets of tracks
all along.
I took some pictures
out my window.
The two trains’
combined length
stretched way out
past and over
the curvature
of the earth in
both directions.
To be standing
between the two trains
at the point on which
they converged,
to have them buffet you,
blast you with wind and noise,
car after car with no escape
in either direction, it
would surely drive a man
with any thoughts of
self-preservation
crazy.
I couldn’t,
and I still can’t,
believe
how badly.
I wanted to see
those trains
collide.
written: 2/18/9
tweaked: 10/24/11