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On a train

Looking out a window

As some other world goes rushing by

Then I remember

How a coffee shop smells

How a hospital smells

How one of those old-time Kmart stores smells

The popcorn and the floor wax

Cheap clothes and plastic

Saddened people

There’s some metallic kiddie ride outside of the store

A big duck or maybe a horse that slowly goes round and round for a quarter

Time slows as a child smiles and laughs beneath a metallic sun

A greasy, littered parking lot out front

That innocent memory pains me

When the young ones were free to feel happy about the slightest things

Back to the time when we had coins that worked

When joy could be purchased for some pocket change

Now we have the orders stamped on our foreheads

Not all of us

Not the boardroom white-skinned nuts

They hate everyone except themselves

Doing God’s work, they claim

Even when God disapproves

And Jesus is too woke

But like I said

I’m on a train

Looking out a window

I’m being sent to the Mass Hole of Burden

A place for the illegal and unwanted

I look at the beautiful homes whizzing by like acid taffy

It’s a momentary flash of the good life but corruption

I punch my brain to dislodge some of my own peace, my own hope, my own will to live

I look up at the guard at the front of the car

He wobbles slightly from the movement of the train

Dressed in all orange

A black riot helmet on his head

An assault rifle in his hands

If someone moves or speaks improperly

He will shoot them

I wonder if he’s okay with that

Has his soul become so corkscrewed that he would revel in it

I look across at the other seat

A man just like me

Same color, same origin, same beliefs

Forbidden muscles and tattoos

His hands are shackled, and he’s been fitted with a collar

Black hair, icicle eyes

He stares at me for a long time

Then he directs me with his head to look at his lap

He somehow has a blade

Silver, sharp, frightening

He manages to hold it in a shackled hand

His grip is tight

I can tell by the bulging veins

He leans forward just a bit

Dangerous

Then whispers as if he’s talking to himself

“When he comes.”

I know what he means

When the guard takes his walk up the aisle

I nod when the orange militant takes his first step

My mechanical heart is pounding

The stranger readies himself

And when the guard is near to us

He jumps up silently like a snake

I see the blade pulse through the air like lightning

A deep groan

No one else in the car makes a sound

The stranger withdraws

The bloody guard slips to the floor

The stranger turns to look at me

A grin of revenge upon his face

But I soon realize it’s not him

It’s me

What do I do now?