Train Tract No. 720

My work day is over. The rain has stopped and I am feeling the strain of daylight savings time. Walking to the station, I pass the remains of an umbrella, splayed out like a pterodactyl on the sidewalk, black wings stripped from its silver bones, the collapsible spine dislocated and bent violently toward the retreating storm. This once-proud instrument, created to shelter us from the very substance which dominates our cells, has been flattened, as if all rain had coagulated and dropped at once on this spot. I wonder if the owner of the drowned umbrella had been lifted up like gum on the bottom of a shoe, as the last rain cloud roiled out to sea.

I board the train and close my eyes. When I awake, we are moving. Absent are the usual clacking noises of wheels on tracks. Outside, I see the flood. The river has crossed the tracks and, to my surprise, we are skimming over the water. A shadow, cast by the setting sun, traces the shape of the train car, and I believe that I can detect an upright mast and a billowing sail. As we glide along the Delaware River, a fellow passenger marvels, “We didn’t even have to pay extra for this ride!”