TrainWrite

from A Simple Machine, Like the Lever

Conductor’s Note: The following is a submitted excerpt from Evan P. Schneider’s debut novel A Simple Machine, Like the Lever (Propeller Books), now available for purchase at Powell’s.

Sometimes time just evaporates. Especially when the weather changes and I want to remain fully cognizant of what’s occurring in the trees. At this time of year hillsides start to resemble elaborate model train sets.

It’s lovely and manageable, this view of the city I have as I ride my bicycle. The air wears a translucent cottony mask. Through it, evergreens become miniature replicas. Broad-leafed trees that have changed color stick out like painted plastic inserts. The houses are small and the cars all boxy, blues and yellows and reds.

As I pedaled by, the train went, Whooot, whooooooot. It and the trees and the air are on a track headed elsewhere, into the dead of winter.

Over the train I watched the sun inch higher. Even as I witnessed it, I was convinced I was missing it all. I’m here, paying close attention, eyes wide open and staring, but it still happens too fast—so much faster than I’d like. Why can’t it take longer, the amazing things, such as leaves falling into my path as I ride? Like weightless gold coins, they tumble back and forth, to and fro, down and down, and then somehow land right in my wire basket as I’m on the move. I’d like to stay in these moments. I want to see them all the way through until they’re gone for sure. But they slip by before I can really get a good grasp on anything that’s happening.

I should write this in my planner:

Sunrise every day

and then make certain that I see the entire atmosphere tinting fuller and lighter, from total darkness until the sun is up completely. Then the sunrise will not have passed unnoticed.

On the corner by the train yard, three tall solitary trees stand in a line, planted along the sidewalk by the grocery store headquarters. Their trunks are whitish and today morning light bounced around in their orange tops. The experience of passing them was like riding my bicycle next to enormous blazing matchsticks. As if it’s no big deal, here were these giant flaming matches burning as I pedaled myself to work.

The train again. Whoot, whoot, whoooooooot.

I had no idea where it was going, but I whispered to the huge machine, “Good luck.”

Evan P. Schneider is the author of A Simple Machine, Like the Lever (Propeller Books) and the founding editor of Boneshaker: A Bicycling Almanac. His work has appeared in The Normal School, Matter, False, and Propeller Quarterly, as well as on PDX Writer Daily, Sweet Fancy Moses, and McSweeney’s. Born in New Mexico and raised in Colorado, Evan now lives in Portland, Oregon, where he works at Literary Arts.