January 2011
13 posts
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Overheard on the San Joaquin
Did you see that guy? He had a teardrop tattooed under his eye.
I’ve met several released inmates on this train. They get on at Corcoran with nothing but a sandwich bag and a few bills. They’re always nice to me, just happy to be out, happy to be alive, content to be in fresh whites and on their way. They say things like “After you, miss” when you’re in line in...
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Merit Badges
I have a confession to make. I’ve been accepting rides to places like work and the supermarket. It’s tough to turn down the heated passenger seat of a Subaru waiting outside your apartment when you’re congested and temperatures are dropping to single and negative digits. But today, I braved it like a real New Englander, layered a newly gifted North Face Polartec fleece jacket...
La Dame du Lac, by Jack Allen →
There’s a new short story up at fwriction:review, and it’s set in a train station!
Read, enjoy, submit.
fwrictionreview:
We came together in a train station. She drew behind her a large suitcase set with wheels, and the other train-goers made no path for us to walk as equals. I led the way, hoping she followed, and our hands, being once attached, somehow broke from one another in...
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“It wasn’t something that happened gradually. It happened overnight....”
– Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
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Overheard on the T
After making calls about snow causing the second car’s door to jam, our conductor is met at Kenmore by a maintenance man with a can of WD-40.
C: Don’t go chintzy on the lube there.
M: You’s got plenty of lube.
C: Well, I likes a little extra lube.
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Track Back: a love letter to riding the rails →
Over the long weekend, take some time to enjoy Track Back: a love letter to riding the rails by flier-turned-train hopper Janisse Ray, published in the latest issue of Orion magazine and brought to my attention by TrainWrite contributor Allie Goldstein.
As it turned out, the train was terrific. What a glamorous way to travel, I thought. How historic. How romantic. In my excitement was contained...
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“It had been quiet in Estha’s head until Rahel came. But with her she had...”
– Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
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Sheeple →
Thanks to the lovely Kate Mayhew for this.
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“Estha carried them home in the crowded tram. A quiet bubble floating on a sea of...”
– Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
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Ships that Pass: On the Abandoned Platform at... →
shipsthatpass:
Last night, around 1:37 am, you were standing on the abandoned platform at the Hoyt-Schermerhorn station, waiting for a train. You looked pensively down the tracks, checked your watch, read a book (The Dud Avocado, I believe). You had dark dark hair and splendid green eyes - I think. My distance vision isn’t the best. But hey, you were the only person to wait for a train on that...
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It's Warm and Sometimes Not on the N Train →
I’m enjoying my first day back at work, thanks to Danny Goodman’s flash fiction piece, “It’s Warm and Sometimes Not on the N Train.” Check it out at at Pure Slush.
He chuckled, and the woman beside him joined in. It felt as if the whole train car might be in on the joke.
Keep TrainWrite on track. Submit.
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Your conductor returns
Apologies, dear followers, for the TrainWrite hiatus. I’ve been en transit. Please enjoy two KES originals from my San Franciscan/Amtrak New Year journey until I return to Boston (and my regular commute) next week:
715 - December 30, 2010
I choose a private backward seat and the woman to my right covers her ears when the engineer takes to the loudspeaker to announce last call. She mumbles...