Solid Ground

The light reflects on his face as he rolls down the tracks in the abandoned train car. The vessel in which he is carried is vacant, and with a wooden floor. He sits, staring out over the grasslands. Time has created such spaciousness in his heart. He finds his mind and spirit blending nicely with the bleakness of the land. Yet, it exudes warmth as well. Somehow the man has come to feel comfort in his solitude. When he does happen to interact with a crow, a mouse, or perhaps even a human, the moments seem longer and hold him for hours or days. Every intimate moment burns deep in his psyche. Often on these long rides through the plains, he recalls a moment spent looking into another human’s eyes. So much silence, so much empty space. In this space he is able to remember those personable moments and savor them. Very much in his imagination, he often uses these instances to make up stories. He uses his observations and imagines the truck driver, the little girl, in a life that he himself created.

Time carries him. It has been five years now that he simply rides, back and forth across Iowa, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Missouri. The open space is all he needs. In the winter he must take a break, and usually finds a room and a job as a dishwasher in one of the smaller towns which he has traveled through countless times. There are conductors that he has befriended, and they are happy to let him occupy one of the vacant cars. Today it is early spring, and he recently sold his few things and is now on the first leg of his journey.

Headed west, he begins to wonder at the ocean. The ocean is vast and open to the sky as well. He thinks how he much prefers the rolling over the tracks and the unbreakable scraping of metal on hard earth. The large expanse of water intrigues him, but he is hesitant desires not to leave his prairie. What uncertainty to be on a boat, floating on vicious liquid, so unreliable in its mood. Here, now he looks into the sun, and listens to the rumble and clanging of the cars on the tracks which he rides. An ocean of wheat, an ocean of corn, and an ocean of grass and dirt and stone, lies before him. He remembers the many variations of the landscape which he savors. Solid ground, this is what I know, solid ground.