train of thought

                 The margin bar blinks and blinks. I hit the space bar to make it stop. Its blinks again like the railroad crossing at which I wait, thinking there is actually something to wait for beyond this crisp moment. I stare into this bright white screen with the first sips of caffeine igniting dawn. 

I should go stretch. Nourish my body rather than crank it up and try to express what feels impossible: Sapana.   

Not today. My adrenaline train steams down the track of mind. Running over my breath and body without care, I sip. The more fuel, the faster it heads towards the “this is it” destination. Only the engineer realizes the destination is a mirage, and laughs. Silently. 

The conductor never hears. 

He is always busy busy busy 

pressing buttons buttons buttons.

What within wants such momentum? This anxious, grasping, unsettled, insanity that must know the truth. The engineer tries to tell the all hands that fuel the train, there is nowhere to go, we are already there, but they think he is crazy. The passengers, who hold all memories, demand attention. The conductor tries to make everyone: the hands, the passengers and the engineer get along. He steers straight ahead. The cargo of this precious life gliding past golden farmlands, abandoned building, bustling skyscrapers and graffiti tunnels, pine forests, roaring seas, homeless encampments... the wooden slates and iron rails carving their way through time and space. 

Until

 she enters the conductor's quarters.

In the wee hours of night, when the crossing signals blink bright, and the horn awakens only ghosts, the hour when none are awaiting to cross the tracks to the place only the engineer knows is nowhere but here, the conductor puts the train on auto-pilot. The train steams with passion into the heart of life: Love. The passengers snore. The hands that fuel rest with reserves burning. The engineer, wide awake, observes in moonlit silence the train approaching a sudden shadow.

The whole train is in love.

CRASH!!!

A speeding daredevil driver did not cross the tracks in time. His car is crushed like his very breathe. And now, the train is in bardo too. The passengers want to know where they are going. Confusion. The hands are floating away. No more fuel. The engineer still watches. The bewildered conductor asks, Where did she go? The passengers fling memories making the cargo: every mother, father, sister, brother, child, lover, teacher, yes every relationship, every item ever owned, the backpack from the first day of school, the last gift from grandmother, every home ever lived in, the one in the woods, every bite ever taken, the pancakes drowning in maple syrup, the tuna melt, the chewing gum, every shoe ever worn, every vacation spent seaside, the shells brought home, the endless toenail clippings like the crescent moons one has watched wax and wane, like the breath rising and falling derail into the abyss of bardo, 

The In between.

The gap.

The engineer, why didn't he ever say STOP? He had the view. No heart. He didn't realize the passengers like him, would die too. The conductor, all heart, was taken by it. No view.

To arrive at the final destination one must unite engineer and conductor for the sake of all passengers who exist as much as the memories they hold. One steers knowing the destination is no destination. . Some days CRASH! 

One must try again with all hands. Down the tracks of life the train steams until every single passenger arrives at the no destination. 

Sapana is aboard. 

I am recklessly trying to steer this foreign train down unknown tracks.