Tuesday, May 17, 2005

When your conviction is spent, utterly reduced to a husky and pitiful gasp, an excellent substitute is distraction. Look intensely out of a speeding train and motion becomes the easiest pill to swallow. Troubles? Forgotten, at least for now. Consternation? Passed it three miles ago.

Muse had sunk into an uneasy sleep. Her anxiety was new, even somewhat exciting, although it ultimately confused me and sent me into a mental tailspin. Our train car was empty except for us, which meant I could speak my mind freely. And that I did. We did. There was shouting, crying, empathizing, theorizing about what would happen, what we could do, what should’ve been done. But in the end, I had to concede her troubles were well beyond my understanding.

The ride into the City requires four hours, with the final hour boasting the most diverse scenery. I caught sight of the Plains, lush home to the Misplaced Modifiers and their nomadic lifestyle, and I immediately knew our stop loomed near. Past the Plains, over Crumbling Lake, through the Daymourn Mountains–which is a bleak stretch, as you can probably imagine–and there it waited, Antiquity City, in all its worn splendor.

There is an instant when your train crosses a threshold and you resign yourself to its inexorable pull, not that you really have a choice. It was at this moment I woke Muse and gave her a reassuring nod. We sat in silence, watching in awe as we whirred by five of the City’s nine boroughs. And then the train slowed to a halt. A shout from the conductor. Rustle of belongings. Clang of the doors. The train whistle shrieked. We had arrived.