Train Tract No. 719

The train is late, and I had not expected to see it now. But, seizing the moment, I run toward it. You have to cross the tracks to board the platform, so the race is on. I am running on the icy pavement with my head down, and as the whistle blows, it occurs to me that the engineer thinks I am unaware of the impending collision. I stop. Once the train passes, I cross the tracks, run the length of the platform, and enter the train. I've made it. Or at least I think I've made it. Perhaps I had slipped on the ice and slid beneath the merciless steel train wheels. Was my life force so strong that I have continued on in spirit form? A loud noise startles me, and I associate the sound with the searing pain of cold wheel slicing through warm leg bone. But the sound is a heavy briefcase that had been dropped to the floor by another passenger. I consider continuing my conceit, if it is a conceit, when I arrive at work. I will greet my coworkers, and in that instant before they respond, I will fall to my spirit knees in mock agony, and cry, "It's true! You can't see me or hear me! I'm a ghost!" And then I will tell them about my near-death experience. And if they do not respond, I will accept my lot and wander off.