Unraveling

Ninety-five times out of a hundred you can stop on the railroad tracks and nothing will happen. At least that's what my Grandmother says. Thing is, how do you know which number you are, or how many people have tested their luck before you? I don't think there's much to be done for it. I don't stop on the tracks ever. I stop behind the arm. 

Today, I saw this man stop at a red light, at an intersection where the trains come precisely six times a day. I have mapped out where the trains still run here and how often they come. I know the routes of each railroad and where they switch. At least for the roads that I travel every day.

No one knows this. I mean, I don't talk about it at parties or anything. I'm at least smart enough to know that people would find it bizarre if I started reciting the CSX schedule. But, this man, he just rolled his car onto the tracks even when the sign said, "Do not stop on the tracks," and he just sat there fiddling with his radio like he was sitting in his driveway. I don't get people like that. I mean, how do you not think about it? 

I imagine death likes people like that man. Making work easier and faster, however it works so he doesn't have to keep slipping on his damn hooded cloak and leaving his apartment when he's binge watching Dead Like Me. People think it's fine to stop like that, and that the odds of them being the ninety-fifth person to stop on the tracks are pretty slim. As far as they're concerned, they are the first. But, one hundred years ago, probably fifty percent of parents outlived their children. People died on clipper ships and sunk down to the bottom of the Atlantic. I read there are at least twenty shipwrecks off the coast of Florida alone. All those skeletons posing like museum displays. Gives me the shivers. 

And, yeah, also, people shared an ice cream spoon with a best friend and died from small pox a week later. Women laid in their bedrooms giving birth and bled to death. People jumped off of trains in the next town trying to find work and broke their necks. People looked at death lounging in their parlors when their relatives passed as the bodies awaited burial. But, these people knew better than to stop on the tracks, or to sit on the tracks with their horses and buggies. They knew better than to rest their feet on the line when they got rocks in their shoes. 

These people knew it was best to steer clear of the tracks. They had seen too many pictures in the papers. They knew what it looked like when a train de-railed and twisted itself like muscadine vines around an oak canopy. They knew what it looked like to see hands and feet standing like burnt out trunks on the ground a quarter mile from the wreckage. They knew what it was like to wonder if those hands belonged to their fathers. I don't know what my Grandmother meant when she told me the odds of getting hit by a train. I haven't slept since she showed me those pictures. 

Reviews

[1809 Black Plague Decem..]

Hello, Dear Ellis, it is great as it is,
The whole story chuckled me in good humor,
the odds of making it in the rail-tracks,
the notion of the world,
you accountability it, and I fancy that
it is a rarety,
the outcome makes me think, I want to know, LOL
a classic ending, love it!
-----1809 Black Plague December

[Eilis]

Hi, there. Thanks for your kind words on the story. I’m glad you enjoyed!

[1809 Black Plague December]

most welcome Dear, :P

[Robert Trakofler]

The mechanisms for cause and effect... well they are effective:) but occasionally they can be defective if said person having witnessed a person get hit by a train while tying shoelaces on the tracks was wearing a red shirt in some folks they would never cross the tracks wearing a red shirt and in some other folks they wouldn't dream of crossing the tracks before tying their shoelaces first... now we can deduce that non of these things Have anything to do with getting hit by the train but the mechanisms don't care about logic they are hard wired in our brains they have a function just sometimes the function gets short circuited. Much like a panic attack that gets triggered from the image of a man crossing the tracks with a red shirt or the sound of a train whistle as you are tying your shoelaces. we can objectively see that there is no relation but the panic still comes. The secret is to know that the only "control" in life is the one that makes us think we are in control... control is in fact an illusion, death never gets to watch soap operas for nothing is predetermined

[Eilis]

There’s a lot of wisdom in what you say here, Robert. The first time I had a panic attack I was 19 and crossing the bridge between the Florida mainland and the Florida Keys. It took me a long time to disconnect the two. Still that can get to me if I’m not in the right frame of mind. I don’t understand my own illness or reactions most of the time. I know things objectively but that never helps when that primitive mind is in control.

So, I appreciate your musing here. This character is lost in ideas and possibilities. That can be good if they are the right sort of ideas and possibilities. Or it can be destructive. Trying to tell someone suffering under this kind of pressure to change focus is about as useful as telling an ant to stop working. It’s just got to work itself to a point where control can be relinquished. Or, like you say, the illusion of control.

Thanks for reading and understanding this. And for adding some depth to the idea.

[Robert Trakofler]

Your conveyance was perfect Eilis, and the bunny knows much of panic triggers... always behind them are true feelings quite often unresolved ones that seem to resurface in inopportune ways:( I'm not saying I don't still have them on occasion but they do seem to have lost a lot of their power over me:)

[Eilis]

I’m glad to hear that for you, BB. Thanks again

[Samuel Dickens]

This has stirred a pot of thoughts inside of me, so many that I hardly know where to start. Start, I must. Having grown up in a small town where the trains split it in half several times a day, I think I might not fear them as much as our Narrator. Dad told me not to crawl underneath one when it was stopped, but I did, of course. I mean--you could hear it clanking half a mile down the track before the car you wanted to crawl under would start to move. If I was halfway and heard the dreadful clank, my heart would jump and I'd scamper like a frightened rabbit to the other side. Ten year-old boys must put pennies on the tracks. We were required to walk on a rail as far as we could without falling off. (I made it about a mile once) We (I) weren't afraid of trains, but knew they could kill ya, demonstrated every day by the rabbits, possums, raccoons and other critters found mashed in two by the mighty iron wheels.
Now, this narrator--I'm not sure if he/she is obsessed with death or just very afraid of trains. I'm reminded of Meryl Streep's character in "A Series of Unfortunate Events," in which she fears doorknobs that might explode when touched, refrigerators that could fall over on you and many other things. Some people scan the horizons, looking for something to be afraid of. Stopping one's car on the tracks is indeed dangerous. Stupid, too. But then, texting and walking or driving is just as perilous. And stupid. So, is the narrator a bit nuts? I'm not sure, but he/she would probably do well to get their mind on something else.
This piece is well-written and I enjoyed reading it. Especially, I think, because it reminded me of Poe, and how some of his characters obsessed over things.

[Eilis]

Thanks very much for taking the time to read and review this, Samuel. I just re-read and I see I need to make some corrections.

I enjoyed all the things you shared regarding your memories of trains. My last childhood home had a train running right behind it and ever since then I’ve felt kind of connected to the railroad. It’s got a pull.

This narrator needs help, yes. I’m not sure they’ll ask for it though. I loved what you said about it reminding you of Poe’s narrators because I think they inhabit similar worlds. Those who don’t reach out are doomed to a kind of outer limit. Some hurt others and some just themselves.

Thanks so much for your time and thoughts. I always appreciate them.