Once, in Solana Beach

I was sitting on a the platform of a train station, on a solid concrete bench. My back pressed to a wall that towered over me. This station is dug into a mountain, and the tracks lay at the bottom of a deep ravine with 40 foot walls, climbing sharply away into the clear blue sky. Sitting at the bottom, stuck uncomfortably close to the tracks, no where to go, no where to hide, no one around. The silence was a thick blanket, slowly working its way around me. Tighter and tighter, it enfolded me in its warm embrace, lulling me into peace.

From a long way off it came, quite at first, ignored and forgotten amid the drifting points of light in my mind. Each a little thought, waiting patiently for its chance to burst into a little flash under my minds wandering gaze. It flashed brighter and brighter, growing more insistent with each pulse. Soon I turned my attention to it, and knew that every pulse was a distant horn blowing. It wasn’t hard to guess what it meant, I was in a train station after all. But I also knew there was no trains scheduled for hours. When the lumbering beast finally came roaring and growling into view, it was a yellow goliath with miles of empty, multilevel car carriers. I expected to see it pass on by, but it came screeching to a noisy halt on the double track on the far side of the station. It slowed, and just as it came to stop, a thousand loose metal doors gave one last thunderous slam of protest, and then silence came slamming back into the gorge. The faceless beast sat quietly, and never have I heard such quiet.

Just as the stillness again entranced me back into a stupor, and my mind defocused among the dancing lights, a felt a strange tremor in the ground. Moments later I heard the first report of the horn. It was higher pitch then the first, and from the other direction. I looked on expectantly, but could see little. It got louder and louder, and it became hard to focus on anything else. When the yellow monstrosity finally came charging into sight, it was like a rabid bull, bellowing its protest at each of the master’s goads. It moved with the total assurance anything that would dare stand up to it would be destroyed, and it would hardly take notice. Unfathomable and impersonal, it came at me like it was hungering for my blood. I wanted to move, to run, ancient instincts were ripping at my mind. But there was no where to go, the walls pressed in all around. The horn screamed its challenge, the ground shook, and then it was on me. A blast of hellish air whipped my face, forcing me to turn away from the maelstrom. One moment suddenly stopped leading to another. Among the chaos, the whipping wind, the roaring sound, the shaking ground, I lost myself. Every point of light dancing in my mind was ripped away on the relentless wind from the wings of a thousand demons. In the storm there was nothing but madness and fury. The train seemed to go on forever, each car over 22 feet tall, clanging and banging, blocking out the sun. I just mere feet away, huddled on my bench, defenseless toward the onslaught. I felt like my mind fractured, and everything inside just came pouring out. Just as I thought it would go on forever, without warning, it stopped. It was over with such abruptness that it to was a great shock in its self. All of a sudden it was just over, and I felt helplessly empty.

Silence consumed the ashes of the conflagration. From a long way off thoughts came swirling back, timid and vigilant. Weaving closer and scattering away, then jagging back. Just as I reached out to embrace them, and comfort them, the forgotten machine made a piercing wail. With a lurch and a great crash of protest from a thousand angry doors, it returned to life. Thought scattered again to the winds. Digging deeply into its tracks, it started its headlong rush away. Moments past, and I was left in a daze as its last car disappeared like a dream come morning. Thoughts returned, one or two at a time, but I simply ignored them. They all felt so small, so meaningless, in the wake of passing gods. Tranquility packed in around the spaces between the soft glowing points, bringing their dance to a slow halt. I sat there in a daze.