Train of Thought

“Hey, roomy. Did you see that I got the new Seether video?”
“Oh, yeah? Is it on your whack?” (snicker) , (snicker)
“No. Yeah. It is now, Miles.”

There we sat, Adam and I, in our solitude. We sat comfortable in our own quiet little worlds, set easily within the span of our expansive, luxurious room. I turned and walked to the hot tub, where the masseuse was getting the oil warmed. I smiled. It’s really the little things that make life worth it.

Suddenly, Adam broke the space. “Hey, did I tell you that … uh .. I also … uh … got … that …” As his ellipses of thought traversed the span between us, through the llama farm and over the chocolate milk brook, my imagination broke my mental space. I asked myself, what would it be like to travel on –

It was a chilly, and possibly blustery, evening as Jasmine and I stood, arm in arm for warmth. The train pulled up with it’s brilliant red engine, and it’s solid black passenger cars. The pistons pumped with the mighty footfalls of a giant of lore, then suddenly they stopped and the mightier brakes engaged, throwing sparks into the air beside and underneath the train.

Jasmine turned to me. I could see the excitement in her eyes. She didn’t need to say anything. It’s not often that a pair of poor, underprivileged street cleaners, like ourselves, got to ride on the fabled train of thought. I breathed deeply the open air. We were lucky. This particular station, located in the heavy thinking portion of Adam’s brain, had hardly any thoughts to disrupt the train. Mostly visitors boarded here. We were also lucky in that the usual oppressive hot air front had passed on this October departure.

We got on. I was so racked with excitement that I soon became sick in the bathroom and had to lay down for several minutes. Then the train started. It heaved forward with the push of Paul Bunyan himself, giving us an anticipated rush forward on down the tracks.

We sped into busier parts of the brain. Through the portion for talking, and then to the lesser populated region for listening. We saw wondrous sites and a couple in the next car came by to share a spot of tea with us. They were a polite couple, and we discovered that they were going to visit their son in the olfactory suburbs. They told us stories. Stories that I, one day, will share with my kindred as if I, myself, were at those places that they spake of.

We neared the center of the brain. This is what Jasmine and I had waited for so long to see. Our grandfather had come from this area. He had been a translator, but he had grown incompetent with age and soon took to less intensive jobs. It was a dream of his to visit the land of his birth. Too bad we didn’t have enough money for three.

Jasmine and I started to share this story with the Oudoors when we heard a scream. It seemed to come from in front of us. I noticed the high pitch it had, and it seemed to go on forever. We dashed out into the hallway, and it was at that moment, when I saw the car ahead of us compacting itself strangely, that I realized what I heard was not a scream at all. The sound was the squeal of the breaks, the twisting of its metal, the destruction of our train.

I can, now, only imagine what the wreck suggested from the air. A snake of cold black, a head of red, slithering it’s way at the speed of an impulse, mounting ranges and dashing through valleys, suddenly and violently stopped. A beautiful invention of man met head on by a beautiful creation of nature, and the resultant carnage. The train derailed terribly. It broke into many parts, destroyed trees and baggage, and took many many lives. Car after car piled upon car after car as the momentum of our journey caught up with us.

Finally, it all stopped. It was dark where Jasmine and I were. We were on the grass, I think, and I think the train covered us like a distorted metal tent. I dared not to move.

Then the wreck began to slide. We were not on a decline. Nay, we were quite right flat, but the wreck was moving as if it were being pulled by something. I crawled out from under the car. I pulled my sister out with me, out into the air and the sun, and we turned to the direction that the train was lurching. There in front of us was a black hole. It was approximately 20 feet in diameter, and it pulled debris in with indiscriminate taste. I heard a voice, a faint voice, say “Who would leave a black hole next to a train track anyway?” but we were all too worried, too distraught, to answer his rhetorical question.

Then I felt it on me. The gravity was pushing me, pulling me, towards the black, gaping … hole. Jasmine, all at once, was swept up and taken in as if she were nothing. Having more man meat to me, I was able to hold off for several more seconds, but I too succumbed to the force.

I was off the ground – I was in the air. Then I was in the black. I could see for miles, but I could see nothing of my sister, the train, or anything else that had been taken hostage by this abomination of nature. All I could see was a single word. Solid, large letters of white against the forever black background. The word –

“Our Lady Peace song?” … what?
“What?” I murmured.
“I said, ‘did I tell you that I got that new Our Lady Peace song?’ Innocent?”
“Oh, no. You didn’t. Sorry – I spaced out for a second.”
“That’s okay – my train of thought completely derailed on that one. Hope everyone’s okay.” And he laughed hard – naive to the reality of it. But inside I thought the same thing:
I hope everyone’s okay.
I hope to God they’re okay.