At the beginning of a cloudy and starless night, I boarded a train having felt I had enough. After having found my seat, I set down my briefcase - the one with the hole cut in the top to allow my tree to come through. In haste I packed only my tree and books in the briefcase.
The evening was too young for sleep and I stood back up deciding to visit the dining car for an evening drink WOOOO-tak! each door closed behind me and I was in a red-carpeted nightclub of wood paneling and many glass bottles and all seats facing outward A hot chocolate in my possession I found a seat and gazed out a tall window that curved up the ceiling reminding me that the sky was still above me A shooting star passed above the clouds WOOOO-tak!
Back in my seat, I found I had a neighbor, who turned to me.
"Well... we are making good progress!"
"Really?"
"Really and truly! That is a lovely tree may I caress it?"
And so he did, his fingers avoiding all the hidden thorns.
My neighbor asleep, I moved to the seat across from him next to a window. Our sense of speed and urgency was diminished by the long, slow curvature of the train moving around a body of water lit by the glow of the moon which had just come out. Thin steam and ash drifted from the front of the train like the steady breath of a sleeper. I realized I would awaken outside of Texas, and that I could breathe. In a strange land, without old roots, I could redefine myself.
(in the style of Inagaki Taruho)
"It's a myth to believe that mysteries only take place at night. Even when the sun is blazing, the same kind of thing happens, but it's harder to notice because of daytime sounds and distractions."
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