Travelin' Man: Part Two

At 6am he boarded the train for Logansport. The cup of coffee in his hand steamed into the chill October air. It had a crisp feel this morning, the air, and smelled faintly of dead leaves and coming frost. He pulled the sleeve of his sweater over his free hand, gripped the steaming cup with the other and cinched up the strap to his attache so it hung snugly against his body. A change of clothes, his laptop, a journal and a couple pens, a toothbrush and toothpaste, a bottle of rootbeer, bottled water, and a couple breakfast bars were stowed away in separate compartments inside the bag. David breathed in and let the air bite into his lungs like small pinpricks, and exhaled with a cough. In a few minutes the train left the station.

The earth is a woman, the earth is a woman, the earth is a woman. The clicking of wheels on tracks beat out a rhythmic cadence, and since he was a boy he'd hear these phrases over and over in his head, whether when he was jogging, driving, walking, or listening to music. They didn't always make sense; he didn't know how they'd come into his head, but they would pound incessantly, insistently into the nether reaches of his subconscious. The earth is a woman.

If it was a woman, then she must have many faces, he thought. Something about it seemed sensuous; he'd come to know her well, had seen her soft rolling curves, the jagged cold heights, the deep, wet rivers and soft valleys that contoured her landscape. He'd traced and retraced her body, and the more he saw of her, the more mysterious she seemed. And elegant. Lithe and graceful as a dancer she was, sophisticated as a high class lady, worn and knowing at times as an elderly matron, and wild and passionate as a young lover. He stared out the window as the sun turned harvested fields to golden brown, and the woman underneath him danced and swayed under the train's caress.

* * *

Shannon's back had been killing her. The digging of Jonathan's fists into the knotted, twisting hard boulders of her back yielded temporary release, but then would close ranks again with reinforcements. She was breaking apart; she could feel it. Her spine ran like a twisted river, grating and grinding against the rocks, chewing dirt from the banks only to dam it up further downstream and shut off the flow. Then came the headaches, the blinding, searing light in the back of the skull or just behind the eyes that exploded like a shower of sand in the desert, and walking, moving became like shards of glass, grinding and biting into the nerves and synapses, sometimes hot, sometimes cold, leaving her screaming in the darkness. She wanted it to end, wanted to find relief in the comforting arms of sleep, but it evaded her, leaving a restless torment in its place.

Jonathan didn't understand. She knew, by the sometimes helpless, sometimes cynical look in his eyes when she said she was tired and had a headache that it was wearing on him. How can you love someone who's splitting apart, shattering like glass before your eyes? For now, he had been patient, but was becoming more insistent, more demanding. The probing of his hands was more hungry than therapeutic. Was he enjoying when he caused her pain? Why hadn't she just stuck with a dog, they were less complicated, more accepting without conditions. Oh God, make this pain go away.

* * *

Millie sat across from him, talking about death again. Had he read the obits? Had he read about the nuclear tests on the other side of the world, the beating two blocks away? He grunted noncommitally, turning the page on the History of the Greeks. The lecture was coming up, and then the conference, and he wanted to know more about the Minoans before then. He'd been to Knossos, had visited Thera, had gotten lost in the labyrinthine palace or in the illustrated texts he'd studied before going. Susan was starting college, Millie had her scrapbook club. It always seemed simpler to study history than to walk out his door down the street to the sidewalk. He'd read some of the police reports. He knew of the woman who'd been run down as she was getting her newspaper at the side of the road. It had been early. The driver hadn't seen her and the sun was just coming up. He'd rounded the corner, coming home for some sleep after working third shift at the plant. Her pink pajamas had camouflaged her, blending in with the rose colored horizon. Trees had cast a shadow. When he saw her it was too late and she went flying, a marionette lying grotesquely across the road, twisted perpindicular like no human body should look, the pink nightshirt soaked through red. He could see her then, but it was too late.

Harold wasn't interested in the obits. The snake cult and bull dancing would have to take his attention for now.

* * *

Logansport wasn't his destination. He'd stop there, get off the train, stretch his legs for a while. He might even find a nice diner to grab some lunch, a burger or a turkey sandwhich maybe, and figure things out from there. He had a map, had an idea he'd head west, past the river, but wasn't sure after that. David wasn't even sure why, it was more of a compulsion, heading somewhere, looking for something, being drawn. He'd know it when he got there, but for now he'd be content to be on the road. Away from where he'd been. Away from the Uhaul truck and the departed and the memories he'd left behind or that had left him behind. For now, he'd keep travelin'.