Light rails
‘Kuk chunk. Kurattle,’ mutters the train and we all rock and bounce to its cranky song. I watch an old man’s jowls swaying as his gemstone eyes, almost buried in downy flesh sinkholes, peer about. He sparkles. I’m trying to picture the world through water-clear eyes, touch it with soapy, trembling fingers. There is no lamentation in his frame, hands folded into woolly lap, silken hair finger-brushed, and those eyes taking in the light with squinty-eyed awe.
Time folds. I make the train, the chattering voices, the whizzing trees and billboards fade until all I can see is the face of my god, and nothing. At this very moment he hangs and bleeds, and peers back, over countless days and miles, to meet my gaze. He knows me. I watch his face change - the whirring noise of a trillion prayers and lives happening right now in this universal moment, where every second of history converges and all loves, fears, attempts and hesitations merge, fades, and all that remains in his vision is me, and nothing. I am not afraid, because it is silent. I can tell from the corner of his mouth that he sees the old man in my eyes - catches the fervour of today’s light, partakes in the joy of this fragment of space-time that bounces about a rusting carriage - and somehow concludes that it is worth it.
A jolt. The old man latches onto my gaze, and shyly turns away, searching the passing scenery for invisibility. He blushes a little, sensing God’s wink.
Time folds. I make the train, the chattering voices, the whizzing trees and billboards fade until all I can see is the face of my god, and nothing. At this very moment he hangs and bleeds, and peers back, over countless days and miles, to meet my gaze. He knows me. I watch his face change - the whirring noise of a trillion prayers and lives happening right now in this universal moment, where every second of history converges and all loves, fears, attempts and hesitations merge, fades, and all that remains in his vision is me, and nothing. I am not afraid, because it is silent. I can tell from the corner of his mouth that he sees the old man in my eyes - catches the fervour of today’s light, partakes in the joy of this fragment of space-time that bounces about a rusting carriage - and somehow concludes that it is worth it.
A jolt. The old man latches onto my gaze, and shyly turns away, searching the passing scenery for invisibility. He blushes a little, sensing God’s wink.