The train:

Train stations, their florescent illumination rising up from the dark nothing of night, only miles of black emptiness everywhere, dead quiet like the night itself and then they appear...as lonely, wild west mirages, shimmering up ahead in the distance... We smoke at the stations.

Stations, where people come and go...the in between places...permanently unsettled by nature...always in the east side of towns where the home-less make their homes, under bridges, by industrial parks, city dumps, car graveyards, positioned next to mountainous piles of wood and stacks of equipment, abandoned trash... We smoke here.

These lots of wood and water towers, rusty 1950's stovetops, close your eyes and it is a gray-landscaped dream, there are dead parts, stacked and strange, where the absence of people makes these quiet graveyards glow-

Cardboard boxes, sagging, abandoned laundry lines mix visually with power lines, green, red and rusted appliances, the likes of which all California towns keep at the far end of their cities.

Our smoke breaks were like cherished moments of found treasure where all the poor traveling souls poured out of the great metal monster and lit up while they could, myself included.

On a train, out of the known, into the deep unknown. No choice but to pass through and deal with the rolling waves of panic, of claustrophobia brought on by sitting in the same, small seat area for twenty-four hours without the crutch of a happily fed addiction.

Panic: Nowhere to stretch the length of my limbs, resisting the urge to smash my fists like a mental patient into the thick window glass beside me, into the freezing snow air passing by at ninety miles an hour, having to just curl up for another imaginary marker of successful time passage without freaking out, without smoking, breathing deep, through the situation, inhaling right down the middle of terror itself, because there was no other option, when that singular force made louder and brighter by quitting smoking, that choice-less force known in certain circles as the fear of death, held me to my seat, and I dealt with the unbearableness accordingly.

We gathered around the doors while the train was still moving, waiting for our moment to smoke. It had been hours, and now only a minute or two remained. The conversations were uptight and tense. We stood in front of the handicapped bathroom and the luggage compartment, waiting, so cramped, ready to blow, barely able to make eye contact. The ground outside the window started to slow down and soon we would smoke. We were crammed like sardines for the final minute, people behind me filing up the spiral, metal staircase, so that I couldn't go back to my seat even if I wanted to.

In front of me were waiting smokers, chatting with each other, as nervous people do, holding their paraphernalia in hand, salivating, tasting the upcoming nicotine relief.

Finally we filed out of the train, into the snow, onto the platform.

After a freezing, dizzying minute of nicotine inhalation, "All aboard" rang through the early morning air, and we obeyed.

The long night would soon settle in more permanently, quietly, with only the occasional announcement to interrupt our cocoon-like existence. We held on to sleep as our only solace, our only way to not go crazy, trapped as we were, accepting our state of trapped-ness like a hard swallow collectively. Quiet sank in and throughout the train. At times, the thing seemed designed for sleep, rocking the adult babies back and forth, the gentle click-a-clack, click-a-clack of the tracks underneath us...gentle...continuous...

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