Traveling Outside of Time
I tear myself away from the lounge car, where I sit after dinner conversing with my new friend, the ex-Marine Joseph.
“I can’t remember ever having talked so much, especially to a stranger,” he says, an hour into our conversation. “I don’t know what’s come over me.”
“The train has come over you,” I say.
Back in my compartment, I fall asleep almost immediately, awakening just in time to see a pre-dawn indigo sky tinged with lemon and a full moon over Mt. Shasta. As I lie in bed with the curtains pulled back watching the day begin, the train cuts east above Dunsmuir to cross into Oregon, where, as if on cue, big purple rain clouds lumber in.
Then I do something that seems deliciously sinful: I lock myself in my private cubicle and take a shower as the train chugs over the mountains at 30 mph. The water is hot, the pressure is strong and all the towels are above average. It doesn’t get much better than this.