Angelic Algorithm & Train Travel
I have never fallen in love on a train before. Before boarding I have my fill of wine; a cheap, red type sure to give me a migraine. I am not interested in the exact type of wine it is. I just drink it down and it tastes strongly of tannins and desperation.
As the train pulls away from the station, I have trouble separating my pulse from the slow clack. The window bastes me in afternoon sunshine and heat. I lean my head against the pane. My skull feels travel. I sleep.
I wake. A young woman has sat next to me. Despite there being at least two dozen empty rows of seats, she sits next to me and her bag has touched my leg. She apologizes. When she apologizes her mouth forms letters so precisely I imagine she is the algorithm of an angel. She asks my name and I am still half asleep.
I mumble my name. Hers comes out crisp like a perfect bite into the perfect apple. Wine pounds in my temples.
Slowly we begin to talk. She asks questions and I answer and then she answers her own questions. No one talks to me like this. She is like a horse and I am a mountain lion and she holds her head high so that I might see her neck. She says she rides horses.
I find out that we are going to the same somewhere. She is returning home for a funeral, but she is not sad. I am going home because I am a prodigal son, but this does not bother her. We talk about home things. We have much in common.
I still watch her mouth move and still think she is an angelic algorithm. When we pass corn fields she sighs and her chest moves like the smallest bellows. She says her first kiss was in a corn field. Mine was laying on a floor.
She says she used to know Ophelia and I say I used to know Robin Goodfellow. We recite poetry in the most unpretentious manner.
She gives me her phone number and it is a safe combination that I have not asked for. She rolls my tumblers and I give her my number. The train pulls into station.
She kisses me on the cheek and shoves her wallet into my hand. She says she’ll need it back by Sunday. Then she runs.
