TrainWrite

Where We’re Coming From, Where We’re Going

by Len Kuntz

We ride in silence, like solemn immigrants who do not know each other’s language. Outside, snow slices sideways, making the landscape that much blurrier. In my little boy head, I am thinking about speed and the end of the world and getting to one place but wanting to be at another. I am thinking this new man might make Mother happy, he might not, but what choice do I have?

The frail butler guy brings us soup. Potatoes like dice bob in the murky broth. My sister slurps and tries not to catch my eyes. I watch the brown water sway with the motion of the train trundling, going going going somewhere in a hurry. My stomach grumbles and I start to clutch.

“I mean it,” Mother says, “if you throw up again, you’re not getting another meal until Tuesday. How will you like that then?”

I won’t mind, I say in my head. Eating is overrated, happiness is overrated. Everything is.

I slide the spoon through my mouth. The metal tastes tinny or maybe it’s the orange carrots bleeding their spice over my tongue.

A thousand trees zoom by, flocked with snow. I try not to let myself see my reflection in the window because I am an ugly child.

Mother keeps checking herself in the compact that looks like a little moon—a tiny globe—a hoop of glass—a portal.

His name is Rafael. He has long hair like a girl and he wears jewelry, too, chains around his neck and bangles on his wrists. Mother enjoys showing off Rafael’s picture. He looks nothing like our father or her other boyfriends.

My sister is younger than me, but she’s the brave one. “Does it really snow in Spokane?”

“It does, it does,” my Mother says, dusting her cheeks. Her skin looks like our Gran’s did the last time I saw her flat and dead inside the casket.

“We could get frostbit.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I saw a TV show about a man who had to have his arm sawed off.”

“Lily, stop.”

I wiggle my eyebrows at her. Sometimes my sister’s not so hard to like.

“And you, Mister,” Mother says, “if you don’t stop your pouting, I’ll just ship you to Shanghai.”

I don’t know where Shanghai is, but I want to go there. I picture forests and Bengal tigers. I imagine riding on the back of one, clutching a spear and jabbing it through Rafael’s bronze chest.

“What’re you smiling about?” Mother asks.

“You never smile,” Lily says.

I am thinking about the tiger and the spear and being bold. Then I am thinking about when our stuff will arrive at our new house, Rafael’s mansion with the gate that needs a code. I am remembering packing up my room and then helping in the kitchen, labeling the boxes. I let myself see the carton with the words KITCHEN KNIVES written on the top.

“You’re turning into a happy zombie,” my sister says, but I don’t see her. I just see myself opening the box, reaching in, finding the knife I will use. Doing that will change everything, will put me on another train, on the way to Shanghai.

I look out the window at the wide white world. I find the cadence of the locomotive’s wheels clipping over the tracks. I think none of this matters, where we’re coming from, where we’re going, what will happen when we get there. No one arrives. No one ever settles in.

Len Kuntz lives on a lake in rural Washington State with his wife, son, an eagle and three pesky beavers. His writing appears widely in print and online at Heavy Bear, Troubadour 21, The Camel Saloon and also at lenkuntz.blogspot.com.

Notes

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