Speeding Bullets and Locomotives

Samantha Mandell

It’s cold in the train station. The open doors allow gusts of wind to bring icy air rushing through the tiled halls. Two little girls standing on either side of a tired-looking mother look expectantly at the tracks with their teeth chattering. Even the businessmen in their suits who commute to the city for their jobs in high-rise buildings are shivering a little.

It’s the middle of November, and outside the cement has already been peppered with leaves colored for autumn. The wind has just arrived. Soon, snow will come. The little girls hope it will come in time for the holidays. Last year, they had a snowball fight on Christmas day with their father. They are looking forward to doing that again.

An insignificant-looking woman, almost young enough to still be called a girl, sits on the bench at the end of the hallway farthest from the open doors. There is a cap covering her brown hair and blue gloves shield her hands from the biting wind. She has been sitting there for a while; not too long, but enough time to have seen three trains come and go. The sound of their horns blaring makes her jump each time.

The woman, Rachel, is carrying nothing with her except a small bag, which she holds securely in her left hand. She looks down, and only breaks her gaze to look up when she hears footsteps in the hall. Rachel is waiting for someone, but she doesn’t think he will come after all. She was unwise to come herself, she thinks. If her mother knew that she had left her warm apartment to come sit in a train station downtown, she would yell at her and tell her that foolishness is not becoming in a young woman. Rachel knows that she is, indeed, being foolish. The fourth train since Rachel arrived at the cold train station pulls in. Most of the businessmen and the mother with the two little girls get on. A swarm of people get off. The hallway that was nearly empty before is now bustling with clicking heels and blurred voices. Rachel looks at her watch. Its delicate hands read 4:07. Rachel decides that she has waited long enough. She stands up and joins the crowd spilling on to the busy street.

Rachel walks to the market a few blocks away. She knows that the market will be warm. She is not in a rush so she takes her time, stopping to look at things that catch her eye. Rachel talks to no one. She avoids making eye contact.She isn’t feeling social today.

“Slice of cheese, please,” Rachel says to the girl behind the counter at the pizza counter in the market. She pulls her gloves off by the unfilled fingertips. On her left hand, Rachel is wearing a ring with a tiny stone. The girl hands Rachel a slice of pizza.

“Thank you,” Rachel says.

“You’re welcome.”

Rachel eats her pizza quietly. She is burdened by memories, but she tries to push them away. When she is finished, she pays for her food and drops a dollar in the tip jar on the counter. She doesn’t want to leave, so she stays. It’s not very busy in this section of the market, and she doesn’t think anyone would mind her just sitting. Rachel touches the ring on her left hand. She twists it around once, and then back the other way. The memories surge forth.

The full bottle of pills sitting on the counter. The phone call. The train station. The police station. The coroner’s office.

Rachel opens her eyes. She is breathing fast, almost too fast. Her head and chest hurt. She stands up quickly, throws her gloves into the pockets of her coat, and walks quickly out of the market. She sees a bus but doesn’t even bother to try and catch it. She needs to run the adrenaline out of her system so she keeps walking. She walks far, through the park that is mentioned on the news as being the scene of rapes, muggings, and murders. She jogs under the freeway overpass. She doesn’t stop until she reaches the front door of her brick apartment building. She inserts the silver key into the lock, and makes sure that she closes it securely. She leans against the row of chrome mailboxes, breathing heavily from her fast pace.

Rachel is alright. She is functioning, she is surviving, she is managing. She straightens up, and decides to check her mailbox. She has two bills, a letter, and a catalogue from a company she never orders anything from waiting for her. Rachel puts the mail in her bag and walks up the stairs.

Her apartment is exactly as she left it. The blankets are folded neatly over the couch and that morning’s coffee cup is lying dry in the sink drain. Rachel sits down at the table. She opens the bills first. She thinks she’s paying too much for internet. She tosses the catalogue in the recycling. She doesn’t need a great deal on last season’s bathing suits. What a stupid thing to send, she thinks. Then she looks at the letter. It’s not addressed to her, but it’s not a mistake either. It’s addressed to Daniel. She takes a deep breath and opens it.

“Dear Mr. Cohen,” it says. “We are delighted to inform you that your poem, ‘Superman,’ has been accepted by our magazine.” Rachel stops reading. She pinches the bridge of her nose to keep her sinuses from clogging. Tears are familiar for Rachel these days. She had started buying Kleenex from Costco.

Two summers ago, Rachel and Daniel spent a week in Montreal. She had never left the United States before, and even the short trip over the border felt like the greatest adventure of her life. She finally got to use the passport she had ambitiously applied for during her freshman year of college. They took the metro everywhere; she thought each station was beautiful. She took hundreds of pictures of the stained glass, ceramics, and murals in the wonderful underground city she hadn’t known existed. When they came home, Rachel told Daniel that she wished she could spend the rest of her life in a beautiful metro station. Who cares about sunshine, she told him, when you have color and people all around you. Daniel had laughed, and told her that there were better places to spend an eternity. He told her that he would take her to those places.

Sometimes, after work or on the weekends, Rachael sits at the far end of the train station for hours, hoping that she will catch him before he jumps in front of the southbound train. On the days that she can accept it, she hopes that she’ll catch someone else because she didn’t catch him. Somehow, she wants to make it up to someone. She wants to make it up to anyone. She wants to tell Daniel that it will be alright, that he can be fixed, that he shouldn’t give up hope. She wants to tell him that depression isn’t permanent. Days before he did it, he was working on his poem and asked her if she thought speeding bullets or locomotives were faster. Rachel smiled, and told him that it didn’t matter because trains are so much better. She told him to remember Montreal. She hadn’t realized that he wasn’t talking about the introduction to a child’s comic book. She hadn’t realized it had been that bad.