unblemished, or appeared to be. A lot of polished mahogany and maybe oak or pine benches, all unlittered.
As I was debating entering the station to inspect it more closely, a girl—a young woman, really—came out. Her look slid right off me as if we met like silk and satin, and was perfectly indifferent in a place where there’s probably so little going on you’d think a stranger might cause a look to snag, at least. It either goes to show how uninteresting my presence is, or that she was mightily preoccupied with her own mission. I wondered what it was. She had no suitcase and was not dressed for travel, at least not for far. She wore a cotton dress, sleeveless, except for the small wings of material that hung off the shoulders in little gathers. The dress was a washed-out blue, so pale it was almost white, the color of dawn. It had a heart-shaped neck and ties at the side that pulled the waist in when tied in the back. I guessed she was twenty, or nearly, but not more than that. After standing awhile, looking up and down the track as if she were wondering where the train was, she turned and sat down on one of the platform’s benches. She was carrying nothing except what looked to be a small purse.
I didn’t want her to see I was staring at her, so I pretended to be studying the train schedules with some fascination where they were tacked up under glass. I knew the La Porte-Cold Flat Junction run, and knew there wouldn’t be another train until late afternoon (4:32, to be exact) for I naturally had to plan my return trip. So what was she doing here? After a few moments of schedule reading, I just looked at her quite openly, for she obviously didn’t care that I was there. I didn’t exist for her; she didn’t care about anything but what was out there along the horizon.
The reason I noticed all of this was because she was so pretty.Beautiful, I guess, with hair so fine and pale blond it looked like milkweed in the sun and eyes the color of Spirit Lake itself, dark gray that I knew would shift around depending on the slant of the light.
I wondered what such a girl was doing in Cold Flat Junction. In type, she resembled none of the people I’d seen getting off the First Union Tabernacle bus, for they all seemed heavy in the face—“coarse” is what my mother would say—as if some potter had stopped the wheel too soon and left the features a little rough and lumpy, unfinished and unrefined. They all looked, no matter what the age or sex, as if they were in need of a potter to finish the job—even the kids. But maybe they weren’t really representative of Cold Flat; maybe that’s just what the First Union Tabernacle does to you after a while. Anyway, this girl with the milkwood-colored hair sat quite still, her feet flat on the platform, her head turned and looking down the line, down the tracks, off to that horizon from which I had just come.
I remember the sky. It was especially, well, white , a thick, milky kind of whiteness with nothing at all suspended in it. It was like a giant page from which the print had faded, unreadable and opaque. I am not a very observant person; I do not note the barks of trees or patterns of leaves or wings—stuff like that. My mother knows every flower that ever bloomed, and Marge every bird that ever warbled. I myself am flower-blind and bird-deaf and it’s a good thing Nature doesn’t depend on me to write it down. Yet, I will never forget that sky. Nothing moved up there in that vast whiteness, no shred of cloud, no drifts of swallows, no sickly stillborn moon left over from the night before. The horizon was a blurred gray line and that was where she looked. The sky was like a judgment, but I could not think upon whom.
In the other direction off to the right there looked to be a few businesses. I made out a big red-and-white Esso sign, what looked like a general store, and another I thought that said “Diner.” It was there that I made for. It wasn’t as short a
As I was debating entering the station to inspect it more closely, a girl—a young woman, really—came out. Her look slid right off me as if we met like silk and satin, and was perfectly indifferent in a place where there’s probably so little going on you’d think a stranger might cause a look to snag, at least. It either goes to show how uninteresting my presence is, or that she was mightily preoccupied with her own mission. I wondered what it was. She had no suitcase and was not dressed for travel, at least not for far. She wore a cotton dress, sleeveless, except for the small wings of material that hung off the shoulders in little gathers. The dress was a washed-out blue, so pale it was almost white, the color of dawn. It had a heart-shaped neck and ties at the side that pulled the waist in when tied in the back. I guessed she was twenty, or nearly, but not more than that. After standing awhile, looking up and down the track as if she were wondering where the train was, she turned and sat down on one of the platform’s benches. She was carrying nothing except what looked to be a small purse.
I didn’t want her to see I was staring at her, so I pretended to be studying the train schedules with some fascination where they were tacked up under glass. I knew the La Porte-Cold Flat Junction run, and knew there wouldn’t be another train until late afternoon (4:32, to be exact) for I naturally had to plan my return trip. So what was she doing here? After a few moments of schedule reading, I just looked at her quite openly, for she obviously didn’t care that I was there. I didn’t exist for her; she didn’t care about anything but what was out there along the horizon.
The reason I noticed all of this was because she was so pretty.Beautiful, I guess, with hair so fine and pale blond it looked like milkweed in the sun and eyes the color of Spirit Lake itself, dark gray that I knew would shift around depending on the slant of the light.
I wondered what such a girl was doing in Cold Flat Junction. In type, she resembled none of the people I’d seen getting off the First Union Tabernacle bus, for they all seemed heavy in the face—“coarse” is what my mother would say—as if some potter had stopped the wheel too soon and left the features a little rough and lumpy, unfinished and unrefined. They all looked, no matter what the age or sex, as if they were in need of a potter to finish the job—even the kids. But maybe they weren’t really representative of Cold Flat; maybe that’s just what the First Union Tabernacle does to you after a while. Anyway, this girl with the milkwood-colored hair sat quite still, her feet flat on the platform, her head turned and looking down the line, down the tracks, off to that horizon from which I had just come.
I remember the sky. It was especially, well, white , a thick, milky kind of whiteness with nothing at all suspended in it. It was like a giant page from which the print had faded, unreadable and opaque. I am not a very observant person; I do not note the barks of trees or patterns of leaves or wings—stuff like that. My mother knows every flower that ever bloomed, and Marge every bird that ever warbled. I myself am flower-blind and bird-deaf and it’s a good thing Nature doesn’t depend on me to write it down. Yet, I will never forget that sky. Nothing moved up there in that vast whiteness, no shred of cloud, no drifts of swallows, no sickly stillborn moon left over from the night before. The horizon was a blurred gray line and that was where she looked. The sky was like a judgment, but I could not think upon whom.
In the other direction off to the right there looked to be a few businesses. I made out a big red-and-white Esso sign, what looked like a general store, and another I thought that said “Diner.” It was there that I made for. It wasn’t as short a
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