The nightmare train? She pulls and chugs—the track she rides is set in stone, but the train may leave and follow her own—scent and instinct—despite the hue and cries of “Derailed!” that come from the fearful, the tearful, the riders, the riderless, the timid, the fixed and focused.
I have felt the rumble and rocked to the rhythm-she may waver, but her course is driven, to destination fixed–yet unknown– to the luckless pawns that ride her on home.
Her fuel is steady furnished, and her furnace is burnished. Her stokers worship the crimson glow of fuel consumed, and their scorched hands and hair are her tribute. They smoke in the streaming air back of the caboose, and oil their burns. Each curses her hunger, vows to escape, feels her draw, returns to her squat black shape.
She eats, excretes, belches velocity, and runs, screams, gleams, shining through the night, spewing her smoke, her smell, her insidious, lingering hint of hell. Her stench infects the country air, and creeps through curtains everywhere. Tiny children stir in bed and moan, and mothers arise and check their rooms.
What can stop this horse of hurtling iron—who can stand in the face of dread and fire? Those that ride her are dumb with fear—her stokers are promised to her by the Seer—the few that sense her in the World, try to deny that she can smell our young girls.
So, it is left to each tender one, to meet and make terms with the chugging, smoking, one-eyed bitch. She visits your sleep. Face her, and weep.
Paula Lyons, MD
11/20/2002