Having crossed the tracks
Having crossed the tracks
A stallion stands motionless on a crumbling patch of pavement where the cobblestones give way to age-browned steel. The freight train passes mere inches from his muzzle, blurring the line between noise and violence. Colorful graffiti passes by in a rainbow blur, flashes of color with no real rhythm but enough cadence that the eye searches in vain for a pattern.
No, there is a rhythm, but not where he’s looking. He changes his focus. In between flashes of rust and rebellion, he can see the road that led to here. Green trees and sweet grass beckon from the irrevocable past, still bathed in the sunlight he can’t remember walking through. It seems wrong, somehow, to remember the fluffy clouds and candy colored days.
Grease and burned diesel replace the steam and frosting he remembered. There used to be cake, or the promise of one. Promise of many? Hm. Wrapped presents gathering dust take their place as his gaze wanders closer to the crossing. The taffy cars, painted flowers, and cheerful mustachioed conductor had long disappeared into the smoke of distant engines, like the one pulling this interminable chain of filthy noise. Each passing car drags a pocket of emptiness behind it. Each of these vacuums sucks the breath out of his nostrils, exchanging it for the grimy dust of a thousand forgotten cargoes.
The sun punches at the clouds. It’s like neither one cares enough to win, and the result is a stalemate that pries at his eyelids, coming at him from every direction. There’s no such thing as shade, and no such thing as warmth. He squints, and wants to sleep. Just to lie down, and forget the noise. The noise and the smell. The noise tears at him, shaking his frame and pulling color out of the hair that falls around his ears.
A railroad crossing is just that. It’s where rails cross the road. It cuts in two, divides. Separates.
He looks down at the road beneath his hooves. His ears perk up as he focuses on the cobblestones. The train takes a small chunk of his ear; just one more piece like all the others before. He imagines that it made a fleshy slap of a noise, though he didn’t hear it. He could barely even feel it.
The train moves on, of course. Nothing he could do would ever slow it down. No piece of him is big enough to change its momentum.
From the corner of his eye the stallion sees another pony, just as she turns away. He turns around and sees dozens of ponies passing through and occupying space. Some look through him, others look around him. A scruffy gray pony in blue scrubs is talking, but the stallion instantly regrets trying to listen – it only lets the noise of the train into his head even more. His teeth rattle in their sockets, his brain pounds insistently to be let out, and his eyes burn.
Some ponies are too nice, and some are too professional. None attempt to shout. A mare in a business suit reaches out and takes away the book he didn’t realize he had been holding. It wasn’t important. If it wasn’t important, then he could have thrown it in front of the train. Of course, it wouldn’t have helped. He could have tried anyway.
So many ponies are laughing, or fussing with their hair, or talking about things that never mattered, or doing a hundred million useless things that nobody ever cared about and never needed doing. And none of them care that nobody cares about what they do. He hates everything they do, and he hates that he cares enough to hate.
The stallion stands up. Again. Tries to pound the noise out of his head. Again. One thunder can’t cover another, and blindness doesn’t stop the noise. Nor lameness nor sharpness nor burning nor sinking nor laughing nor caring nor fussing nor—
The world shakes and groans, grinds his joints to powder. And still he stands. Isn’t that what stallions do? They stand. Strong. Resolute. He falls.
A mare tumbles with him. For a time, they lie together, shaking and burning in the cold roar of sparking wheels and polished rails. She talks, and he can’t hear. She talks at length, and he opens his ears to the world – one on the earth, one to the sky, bleeding.
He wonders how long he has been talking. He asks about the train. He asks about the noise. She replies. Maybe.
Pebbles dance in the cracks between cobblestones. If he stares at the wheels, it almost feels like he’s falling. Or floating. He is standing again, trying to make out the letters stenciled or scrawled on the sides of the cars as they rush past. Some secret code, perhaps, or a hidden meaning. He just needs to get closer, and he’ll be able to see everything. Become one with the noise. He leans forward.
A hoof is on his face, pulling his gaze away from the train. This pony is so tall, so very tall, and doesn’t pretend the train isn’t here. There are no hollow platitudes and no awkwardness. The stallion can’t hear a thing, and that somehow doesn’t matter, because there is no speaking. Only the road.
A railroad crossing is just that. It’s where rails cross the road. It cuts in two, divides. Separates. But there is a road.
The stallion takes a step forward. The noise remains, and hurts no less. This is what ponies do. They move forward.
The train can’t be stopped. The stallion knows this, but it doesn’t bother him any more. The noise can’t be stopped, or damped. But he can walk on.
He looks back, and reaches out a hoof to the mare. She shuffles forward the scant few inches to meet him. She falls. This is what ponies do, they fall. And they get up.
The stallion is carrying her, now. Or she is carrying him; he isn’t sure. They take a step away from the train. The mare grasps at his mane, lifting herself up until she can whisper in his ear. Of course, he hears nothing. But he doesn’t need to hear her warm breath on his ear, or the sigh that ends in a shudder with the last of the words she discards into the air.
He smiles.
Author's Note
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