A Train of Thought (standard:Psychological fiction, 6584 words)
Author: T.A. Parmalee	Added: Feb 26 2008	Views/Reads: 4103/2787	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A fast moving train. And everyone is growing old for no apparent reason. Could the final destination be death?

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

track three, so I pick up my one bag. I take a last look at the 
beautiful woman sitting beside me and see her getting up as well. The 
man pacing back and forth suddenly stops. I hurry by him because I 
don't like the worried look on his face. 

The train is nice enough. As it leaves the station I try to fall asleep
in my seat, but I keep on thinking about everything. For one thing, I 
miss my brother. I don't really miss my parents all that much, but my 
older brother was something else; he always was able to cheer me up. I 
wonder about him a lot. There's this one picture of him I have that 
shows him biting his nails and looking into the distance as if in great 
thought, even though he is just sitting in the living room chair. 

I think of the young man in the train station who had been pacing back
and forth. And I wonder why he looked so worried, why he had that same 
worried look that my brother always has in his eyes. 

It was probably a woman. My brother always was worrying about a
woman—they always got the best of him. All of his ex-girlfriends were 
framed and hung up neatly on his wall. Christ, I swear that whenever I 
went to visit him I felt like I was at an art exhibit or something. The 
girls were that fake. All of them had makeup on and dresses that 
accentuated their most voluptuous parts. 

Anyway, the guy who had been pacing back and forth was probably in love.
He was probably going to meet the girl right now and the reason he was 
so anxious was because he was afraid she wouldn't be waiting for him, 
that she had forgotten. 

The train starts to hum loudly. After a couple of hours, it slows to a
stop at the Maryland station. I grab my bags and get off. 

Anybody who has ever spent a lot of time in train stations can tell you
that one is like any other. Still, this is a little ridiculous. The 
first thing I see when I step off the train is the homeless man from 
the previous station—the same one. He is walking into the lobby, 
limping even more than before. I wonder how he got on the train. I 
hurry up so that I can walk alongside him, trying to catch a glimpse of 
his eyes. But he has those damn glasses on. He just ignores me and 
doesn't even cast me a sideways glance. 

He really is limping, though, and I feel sorry for him. His hair is
grayer than I had first noticed. 

It's early in the morning when I walk into the Maryland station. I
trudge in as though the bag on my shoulders is heavier than it really 
is. My leg keeps cracking as I walk. I start to feel a little weird 
when I see the beautiful black woman sitting on the far bench in the 
lobby. Even though almost all the seats are empty, I sit beside her. 
She is resting her head on one of her shopping bags, dozing. 

I love the smell of women. Honestly, I can be in the worse mood, but I
will feel that much better when a pretty woman walks by me on a windy 
day. I'll inhale deeply. You can tell a lot from how a woman smells. 
Sometimes, though, a really clean smelling woman will disturb me 
immensely. A nice woman like that reminds me of how dirty I am. 

But we've all done some bad things, I suppose. The last girl I went out
with was a princess. She liked to play with my hair and once she even 
said that she saw truth in my eyes. I had never had a girl say that to 
me before. I didn't quite know what to make of it. She was wrong, of 
course, but I couldn't very well tell her that. What she saw was not 
truth. She may have saw something, but it was not truth, not in my 
eyes. 

(The hurt?) 

Yes, that may have been it. In that sense, maybe she did see the truth.
After all, I did hurt her...and I do imagine that there is a certain 
amount of hurt in my eyes, in my being. 

I'm not really sure why it is I hurt other people. I guess doing that is
just a part of growing up. But I'd hate to never grow out of this, to 
wind up like my mother. Maybe I just want to understand how people can 
be so terrible and maybe if I start to destroy, I will understand how 
people can be so dreadful. But I never understand. I just feel worse 
and the hurt never goes away, it just ages like a fine wine that no one 
ever has the heart to open or dump down the drain. 

Making sure to see that no one is looking, I bow my head down and smell
the smooth hair of the sleeping black beauty. Reluctantly, I notice 
some of it is turning gray. This is strange because earlier, when I had 
first seen her, I had taken her to be 20 or so. I peer at her sleeping 
face and notice she also has dark circles under her eyes. Feeling 
nervous, I dig in my pocket for my pack of cigarettes. 

But when I put one in my mouth I start coughing as soon as I inhale. The
sleeping beauty awakens, gives me a dirty look, and then moves down a 
seat. As if to offer her an explanation, I put out the cigarette and 
smile at her. She turns her head, revealing more gray hair and I wonder 
just what the hell is going on. 

I look to my left and see the man from the last station—the one with the
worried look in his eyes. He's still pacing back and forth—his hands 
balled up in his pockets. With some bit of horror, I notice that his 
hair has receded above his forehead. I can see the sweat on his balding 
head shimmering. 

By the way he is pacing, I swear that I can hear him screaming silently.
He is dragging one foot a little, as if he is extremely tired. Before, 
he had looked overdressed in his trousers and sweater, but now it seems 
as though his clothes are sagging...as if he (is shrinking?) 

And he is hunched over. Why has he lost so much hair? And it doesn't
look as healthy as before. It looks thin. I bow my head down, looking 
at my hands for comfort. But the sight of them makes me almost cry out. 
They are swollen and splotched with red spots and hair is growing out 
from my knuckles. I close my eyes thinking that maybe I need some rest; 
maybe I am not seeing things quite correctly. 

But I still feel. I feel the heavy weight of the air and the walls of
the room. I feel like it's a room of death...a world of death. The air 
is stale and I crack my knuckles, grimacing in pain before turning to 
look at the sleeping woman, hoping she'll be beautiful again. 

But her gray hair is still there and the bags under her eyes have grown
into craters. And now I am sure that the gray hadn't been there when I 
had first seen her. I look over her body, her heavy hips, the circles 
under her eyes, her broken heel. 

Maybe I am just seeing her for what she really is. Maybe if each one of
us could see better, everyone would be ugly to look at. 

After all, my father wasn't such a pretty person. He was overweight and
he farted at the worst of times. Whenever he was home, he'd stink up 
the entire house. 

But everyone had thought that my mother was beautiful. I think that
ended up being a detriment to her, though, because she ended up 
comparing herself to my father. That's when she started disliking him. 
How did she get involved with such an ugly man, she may have asked 
herself. Why hadn't she seen him for what he really was? 

But the truth I think is this: he didn't start being ugly to her until
she started thinking of him as such. 

Anyway, she started fucking her boss just before my father retired. He
saw that something was wrong, but at first, he didn't know what it was. 
He yelled at me more than once for no reason at all. 

But to me, my father became more of a person after he found out about
what my mother was doing. He too began to have doubts—not about my 
mother, but about his love for her. I was just as confused as he was 
really. It was then that I began to realize how much makeup my mother 
wore and I started liking her less and appreciating my father a bit 
more. 

My life seemed to come to a standstill the day I left a pen in my pants
and my mom decided to do some laundry. The pen exploded and ink got all 
over her new blouse. She called me up from my room, and as soon as I 
had gotten upstairs, she started kicking me in the shins, cursing at me 
for ruining her life. That was a very interesting moment for me. My 
father was reading a newspaper on the toilet and he had to come out to 
calm her down, his pants still bunched around his ankles. 

So I suppose that some of us become better people and look more
attractive with the passage of time while others become like my 
mother—they start wearing lots of makeup. I don't talk to either of my 
parents anymore. There was a time that I tried to stay friendly with 
them, but every time I called they would end up crying over the phone 
and I'd just get depressed. 

A commotion coming from the other side of the train station interrupts
my thoughts and so I look over and see the homeless man. He is waving 
his arms emphatically, trying to explain to a cop that he once 
graduated from the University of Michigan. The officer just keeps 
shaking his head. Finally, the vagrant stops talking and labors toward 
the door, right past me. I hand him a dollar bill as he saunters by and 
although his dark glasses prevent me from seeing if his eyes light up, 
he opens his mouth, revealing a perfect set of pearly teeth. He walks 
out the door, simply dragging one leg instead of limping as he had been 
before. 

A voice on the loudspeaker announces that the train to South Carolina is
leaving. I walk over toward the sleeping woman to retrieve my bags. She 
is picking her luggage as well. I look around for the pacing man, but 
he is gone. 

My legs are very tired. My head is bent forward and I feel closer to the
ground than I have ever been before. I go down the stairwell with pain 
shooting through my legs. The conductor tells me to watch my step 
boarding the train as if I am some sort of feeble old man. I shoot him 
a dirty look before boarding, wondering why I am so irritable, telling 
myself that maybe I should take a nap. 

I walk down the aisle searching for a place to sit when I see the man
who had been pacing back and forth, his hands folded in his lap and the 
little hair he has remaining completely white. 

I blink my eyes, telling myself I'm seeing things, but when I look up,
his head of snow is still there. I start thinking about all the things 
that die in the winter and how spring is so short lived—how the bees 
buzz angrily when the birds stop singing. I feel like I'm getting stung 
in the stomach sometimes. I think about all the things that I have 
lost, that I have let slip away and it is as if I'm dying. Welts open 
up on my skin and even during the summer, when it is warm, my sweat is 
not so much a by product of passion, but more of a memory of hopes I 
once had. 

I sit beside the man with white hair. His eyes stay fastened on the
floor, as if he is contemplating his age. 

I put my hands around my knees and start to shiver. There is an itch on
my ankle, and as I scratch it, I notice uneasily that my skin feels 
like leather—as if all the moisture has gone out of it. I look at the 
old man sitting across from me, squinting my eyes, partly because I am 
having trouble seeing him, but also because I am expecting him to turn 
back into the pacing young man he had been just hours earlier. 

I clear my throat, but he continues looking at the floor. So then I
light up a cigarette, hoping he'll look up. But as soon as I put the 
cigarette in my mouth, I lose my breath. It's as if the thing is 
burning my lungs, and I hack in such a way that everyone on the train 
looks up to see if I'm all right. Either that or they are annoyed. 

I look in the eyes of the man who is sitting beside me and I am
reassured that he is indeed the young man I'd seen earlier. He has that 
same look of uncertainty that my brother has—that same clinging 
fondness for women. 

I stare at him for a good minute before realizing my cigarette is still
lit, dangling at my side. I put it out trying not to notice how swollen 
my hands are, putting their discolored splotches in the back of my 
mind. 

His eyes are hazy—like two pools of polluted water. I have the weirdest
urge to wet my fingers with chlorine so I can dab at his face—maybe 
then he would become young again. 

“It is a woman.” I say looking at him, saying this more as a statement
than anything else. 

He uncrosses his legs, then opens and closes his mouth. He swallows and
I see his engorged Adam's apple slide up and down. 

“How did you know?” he asks. 

“The way that you were pacing back and forth,” I say. 

The old man nods his head with great effort. He swallows again. “Yes...a
woman. A woman,” he says softly, looking back at the floor again as I 
wait for him to go on. But instead, he just closes his eyes. 

“Would you like to talk about it?” I ask, hoping he hasn't fallen
asleep. 

He keeps his eyes locked on the floor for a good thirty seconds before
looking back up. “What would you have me tell my story for?” he asks. 

“I'm just curious,” I say. 

The old man looks at me rather doubtfully. “Tired...I'm just tired,
that's all,” he says. Then he looks at his arm, contemplating the white 
hairs there. 

“I'm tired too,” I say, trying to make him feel at ease. 

The old man looks back at the floor. “That's all you need to know,” he
says. “I've said too much already. Like you said, it is a woman. I'm 
going to Florida. I don't know if she'll be waiting for me or not. I 
told her that I was coming...but...but well, I haven't seen her in 
awhile. I sort of went away, ran out on her because I was confused.” 

I tell the old man that I'm on my way to Florida as well and that maybe
we can sit together again on the next train. He shrugs with 
indifference. 

“Are you confused anymore?” I ask him. 

He looks at the white hairs on his arm again, giving them a perplexed
look. “No. Not anymore. I know what it is like to be without her now.” 

For some reason, this makes me think of my family. My family was so
fucked up, but at least it was real and sometimes I miss that. 
Sometimes, the things that I have to worry about now that I am out on 
my own seem rather pointless. After all, life was more interesting when 
I didn't know whether or not my parents were going to kill each other. 
Now all I worry about is where my next meal is coming from and how I'm 
going to pay for it. I'm not in tune with my emotions anymore. I feel 
like life is one big routine. And most of all, I am confused. 

When I look back up, the old man is tapping his feet nervously against
the floor. 

“What's your name?” I ask. 

“Jacob Moyer,” he says. 

Without really thinking about it, I look him right in the eye and say,
“Jacob...Mr. Moyer...she isn't going to forgive you.” 

His two eyes penetrate mine, looking more polluted than ever. I look
away, but before I do, he says, “I have to try. I have to try.” He 
looks me right in the eyes as he says this, his hands shaking. 

I look at my friend's white hair and think about telling him that trying
is not going to do any good, that I have tried and nothing ever came of 
it. I feel like telling him that the only way to get through life is to 
not try at all. 

There are memories, though. I still have memories. It is funny that as
time goes on, you don't think about the hurt, but dwell on the good 
times—that sparkle in that special someone's eyes, that deadly kiss, 
those lanky legs...or that one day that went well. 

But just because you don't think about the hurt does not mean you forget
it. It becomes a part of you and every time you take in a breath, it's 
pumped through your body. It becomes intensified at the most 
inappropriate times—when you are trying to fall asleep or when you are 
shopping in the supermarket. A person that knows such hurt cannot go 
back to it. The best thing to do is to escape. 

But I don't tell my friend Jacob Moyer this. It would not do any good.
Besides, he is still staring at the floor, mumbling, “I have to try...I 
have to try.” 

After he says this for about the tenth time, I suddenly find him very
annoying. There is a burning in my bladder and I excuse myself to go to 
the bathroom—a small cubicle that doesn't even have a mirror. 

The life drains out of me. It takes me a good three minutes before I
finish because it keeps letting itself out in spurts. Before walking 
out, I return to the bowl because I start leaking. Why does everything 
leak after awhile? Why do some people die when they are forty-five and 
other people live until they're eighty? Things just seem so meaningless 
to me sometimes. So many things come and gone. Things that I once had I 
threw away and now I spend my days remembering them. Why did I throw 
them away then? As I step toward the door, a pain shoots through my leg 
and I have to brace the wall for support. I walk up the aisle to my 
seat, hunkered over. The train is slowing down and the conductor says 
something about being at our stop. 

I get to my seat just in time to see Jacob limping up the aisle without
any luggage. You always know that a man is in love if he's taking a 
trip without any bags. 

I blink my heavy eyes, watching my friend depart. I'm terribly tired,
but I keep my eyes open to see if Jacob will make it to the door—he 
looks ready to collapse. 

Grabbing my one bag, I sling it over my shoulder, trying not to think
about how much my back hurts. For some reason, I'm really depressed. I 
feel like the world is a Kleenex and I am just one of the many boogers 
that it has to deal with. 

I cough and try massaging my chest to ease the pain, but it doesn't do
any good. The train has stopped and I walk toward the door. 

I follow the signs to the station's waiting room. My attention is
diverted, however, when I see a team of paramedics rushing in the 
opposite direction. Curious, I limp after them. 

When I catch up to them, I am not able to say anything—just breathe
heavily. The homeless man from the previous stations is lying on the 
pavement unmoving, with paramedics breathing into him like a balloon. 
Even though his face is wrinkled beyond recognition, I can tell it is 
him because he's still wearing those oversized sunglasses, he is still 
wearing his blue sweatpants, and he still has his hands in the 
waistband. 

I walk away uneasily, wondering why everyone is aging so quickly, trying
to ignore the way my legs are cracking. 

Outside the South Carolina station, the cold night air is blowing in my
face. It's as if pieces of glass are flying into my cheeks. I approach 
the door that leads to the waiting room inside, but just as I do, a 
hand clutches my ankle from underneath the stairwell. 

The first thing that my eyes see is the varicose veins that show through
the stocking of an old hag. My eyes trace the woman's leg, like 
surreptitious glances that an old man sneaks at the mannequins that 
model underwear in a lingerie shop. I look further down until I see her 
broken heel. 

And then I see her face. It's not really a face anymore, but a series of
dried out rivers. Her eyes, which had once been big brown marbles are 
simply tiny specks sunken into her face. Nevertheless, she looks at me 
and says, “I was beautiful once. I was. You know don't you? I 
re-mem-ber you.” 

I put my hand on the door, open it, and as I walk inside the station I
lie to her and say, “You still are beautiful...you still are.” But I 
don't look at her face as I say this and I have to shake my leg to rid 
it of her hand. 

When I walk in, the first thing I see is Jacob Moyer—the old, pacing
man, limping back and forth in front of the information booth. I walk 
over as quickly as I can. I need him to tell me what is going on. He 
will know, I think. From the remarks he made earlier about love, he 
will know. He was so sure of everything. 

“What's going on? Why is everyone so old?!” I rasp at him. 

Jacob twitches nervously in my arms, but doesn't say anything. 

“Jacob? Jacob?” I ask, shaking him. 

He jiggles loosely and looks over my shoulder. 

“Jacob...who is Jacob?” he asks. 

“You are,” I say. 

“No...no, not Jacob,” he stutters, looking at me confused. 

“Who are you then?” 

“I don't know,” says the old man, who I am sure is Jacob. He seems to
have gone senile. 

“Yes you do!” I yell. “You are Jacob Moyer. You are going to Florida to
try to make up with the girl of your dreams. You said she might be 
waiting for you. Don't you remember?” I yell. 

He looks up at the ceiling, as if in deep thought. Finally, he looks
back down and says, “Nothing will be waiting. I don't know what you are 
talking about. Maybe you should go back to where you belong.” 

I let go of Jacob's shoulders and turn my back, looking all around me.
It's too late to go back though. There's no way I can go back after 
coming so far. It's no use. 

I look at my friend as I hobble away. He's still gazing at the ceiling,
pondering the heavens like Galileo. 

The loudspeaker announces that the train to Florida is about to leave so
I hobble along, passing many people on the way. They are all dragging 
themselves along, some of them sipping coffee, all of them looking old. 


Every single one. Most of the men don't have any hair and the women are
walking with canes or leaning on their husbands so that each person is 
depending on the movements of the other. 

I look at them and almost laugh aloud, expecting them to fall over like
bowling pins. 

I walk to track three, dropping change in the baskets of beggars, all of
them dying dinosaurs. 

The voice on the speaker announces that the train is departing, coughing
in between syllables. Christ, I think. Even the man on the speaker is 
old. 

I get on the train and look around for Jacob, thinking that maybe he
remembered, but he isn't anywhere. I pass an ancient woman with thick, 
goggle-eyed glasses knitting. Then I flop down in my chair and sleep. 

I dream that I am sitting in my tree, the one I used to climb back home,
high above the ground, looking at all the people passing by. They all 
looked so perfect—the girls in their pleated skirts and the boys with 
their stiff collars. And I just sit in my tree, nobody taking notice of 
me, nobody bothering to look up. 

My father never bothered to look up either. He was just like the people
walking around: he always kept his head bowed. He never had any clue 
what was going on. 

I remember the talk he had with me after he found out that my mother was
cheating on him. He kept on rocking back and forth, and every once in 
awhile; he'd look up from the kitchen floor and stare at the ceiling or 
something. He kept saying the same thing over and over, 

“God I love her so, God I love her so, God I love her so.” 

And he looked me in the eye. 

That's what hurt me the most I think. Not the fact that I had sensed my
mother had been cheating on him, not the fact that my family had never 
really been a family, but that look I saw, that helpless, beaten look. 

I could barely look away. He told me he was leaving her and that I
should come with him. Then he looked at me again. He looked at me with 
those pleading eyes, red and tired. Instead of making eye contact, I 
looked at the floor and told him I had other things to do. I told him I 
had a life to live. 

I'm still not sure if that was the truth or a lie—having my own life to
live that is. I sometimes think that maybe I left just so I can forget 
the life I had, that leaving wasn't about trying to start over, but 
about trying to forget. 

I open my eyes. 

The train is still bustling along, headed to nowhere. Why do people
always go from point A, which is perfectly defined, to point B—which is 
a mystery? I don't know, but I tend to think that whatever that answer 
is has a lot to do with what being human is all about. It's either 
ambition or a certain amount of stubbornness, I think. 

I start wondering how far away Florida is when the train starts to slow
down. I look out the window and see the Orlando station in the pink, 
early morning. 

I bite my knuckles, looking at them long enough to see that they
resemble putty, as if my skin is rotting off. All the people on the 
train are sleeping. Not one chest is moving up and down. Not one 
nervous eye is twitching. 

Before the train even stops, I get out of my seat. I try rousing the
ancient lady beside me, but to no avail. I then try to wake up her 
husband, to tell him that maybe he should check on his wife—I don't 
think that she is breathing. But I can't wake him up either and when I 
put my ear to his chest, I hear nothing. 

I go from one wrinkled, lumpish form to another. All of them are dead.
Some have their mouths open, revealing bloody gums devoid of teeth. I 
put my hand over my right side and sigh heavily when I feel my heart 
still beating. 

Some of the corpses have their heads cocked to the right, others to the
left. A few are looking at their groins and others have their heads 
tilted up to the ceiling as if they are making love to God...screaming 
in ecstasy with their mouths open like that. 

I pull at one of my teeth and it wiggles a little. The train starts
slowing down. I notice for the first time that the air is stank and 
still. 

I limp up the aisle, searching for an open door. But all of them are
closed. As I move up farther, the stench of death becomes worse, and 
although I am trying not to look at them, the skin of all the people 
seems to be sagging right off their faces. 

The train comes to a stop and the morning sunshine is beckoning from
outside the Orlando train station. I try the door, but it's locked. I 
start walking back to the rear again, moving faster because the train 
is starting to hum, about to leave. 

My heart is filled with terror as I think of what it would be like to
migrate around the world with a train full of ghosts and lost bodies. 
The stench is overpowering the air. The train is humming louder. The 
sun is shining through the train's windows and I reach out for it in 
desperation. 

When I hit the emergency exit switch on the side of the door, it creaks
open. I step out into the light and my feet grasp the platform 
uncertainly. Behind me, the ghost train starts to move again and 
finally leaves. 

The morning air is crisp and as I breathe it in. I cough, turning back
one last time to look at the train fading in the distance before 
walking toward the station doors, opening one with great difficulty. 

When I walk in, I breathe a sigh of relief because I see a beautiful
young woman who cannot be any older than twenty-five. 

She is holding something though. A rectangular piece of cardboard. It
says something on it, but I can't read it. As I squint my eyes, she 
starts walking toward me. Her brown curly hair bounces as she moves. 

Now she is standing right in front of me. I look down at her sign and
see a name. 

“JACOB MOYER,” it says in big, black magic marker. 

The woman puts her hand on my shoulder as if she knows me. 

“Have you seen him?” she asks. 

“Seen who?” I say. 

The woman moves back a little and blinks her beautiful eyes. She runs
one of her hands through her hair, moving the part out of place, 
becoming more beautiful nonetheless. 

“I'm sorry,” she says. “For some reason, I thought that you'd know.
My...my friend...Jacob. He's a young looking guy, around twenty five. 
He has blonde hair that he slicks back. Dresses sort of preppie.” 

She is rubbing her hands together in anticipation of my answer. I look
away from her hungry look and bow my head down to the floor. 

“Do you mind if I ask why you are looking for him?” I ask. 

She runs her hand through her hair again and says, “It's a long, long
story. But I love him. He wrote me and said he was coming and I wanted 
to meet him here. We've been apart too long.” 

I look in her eyes and see she's telling the truth. She's not even
wearing any makeup. 

“Did you see him?” she asks. 

“I saw him in South Carolina,” I say. “He was pacing back and forth. He
was wearing a green sweater and khakis. He said he was coming to see 
you.” 

I look the woman in the eye and then lie to her. “I think his train
there was delayed. I saw him and he looked quite upset. We talked. He 
told me he was coming here to see you. He's probably still in South 
Carolina waiting for the next train.” 

The woman bites her lip, but by the way her eyes are sparkling, I can
tell she's relieved. 

“I should go to him shouldn't I?” she asks. 

I look at her curiously. “You have to try,” I say. “If you love him, you
have to try.” The young woman clicks her heels and kisses my cheek. I 
watch her legs twist and turn as she walks in the direction of the 
ticket booth. 

I run my hand across my forehead to wipe the sweat away. Then I scratch
my head, moving my hand across it in disbelief because I don't feel any 
hair. 

I look around, panicking. But I feel a little better when I see the
other people, professional looking types in their 20s and 30s. I put my 
hand on my head again, but all I feel is tough skin. My bladder starts 
to warm up and I search for a bathroom, finally coming to one at the 
far edge of the lobby. 

On my way to a stall, I see a stranger sauntering in the same direction
as I am. I stop. So does the stranger. 

I walk up to meet him when I realize with horror that I am hanging over
a sink, looking in a greasy-streaked mirror. 

A bald headed bull with inflated nostrils and baggy eyes looks back at
me. He is hunkered over and his clothes are hanging loosely over his 
body. Straggly hairs are growing out of his ears and his skin is 
splotched with red spots. 

I run my hand over the burlap skin on my head just to make sure. So does
the man in the mirror. 

An unsettling certainty comes over me. Jacob Moyer was right. He had to
try. Then, an even greater truth comes upon me as I look into my eyes, 
red and swollen. 

I never tried. I never went after what I wanted. I never had the courage
to take that train back or to stay where I was to make the best of 
things. 

I grip the sink and stare at myself. Then I think of Jacob Moyer and how
he was pacing back and forth. I think of going back to my home to make 
the best of things, but even as I think this, I tell myself that it is 
too late. But I have to try, I think. I have to try. 

Then I close my eyes and think of how beautiful Jacob Moyer's dream
looked as she twisted her legs toward the ticket booth, following her 
heart where it was telling her to go. 


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