Night Train

I commandeered the front page this week for a special report, but then I ended up running off to the woods, which prevented me from writing the report and also proved my intended topic moot. I'd been planning to write about the end times, but apparently it's the next comet that will bring about the events foretold in detail by my manicurist. If this comet had been the magic one, I'd now be in possession of a golden pegasus that travels in the dimensionless space between atomic particles. Instead I'm in the Amtrak station in downtown Tacoma, sheepishly holding my one-way ticket home.

This means I'll have to improvise an article (among other disappointments). Normally when I have to improvise you get to learn about some obscure piece of trivia, but the downtown Tacoma Amtrak station doesn't have WiFi, so I can't google "obscure trivia," as I normally would. I guess I'll just have to do like Arlo Guthrie and live-blog my journey home.

What the downtown Tacoma Amtrak station does have is lots of people coming in to ask if they can get the bathroom code, explaining to the ticket agent that they've been at "the party" as if this was self-explanatory. To their credit, they're all dressed like they've been at a party. They've been unfailingly polite, and so far the ticket agent has taken pity on all of them. I wonder if this works in other circumstances. Maybe the dentist, for example? If you tell the dentist you've been "at the party," will they sneak you in for a last-minute cleaning?

8:45 pm. Behold, a train has arrived (ten minutes late) and my ticket has been duly honored. Not an overly packed train, to my satisfaction. I've taken a backward-facing seat where I have an excellent window and a row to myself. I'll report later as to whether this will prove to be a mistake. I'm on the west side of the train, in hopes of spotting the aforementioned comet of no significance. Perhaps I'll visit the cafe car. (Another gamble.)

9:29 pm. The cafe car heeds neither god nor man. Those anarchists will microwave you a sausage breakfast muffin at any time of day of night. Mine is now a memory, along with my little bag of pretzels. I have still seen no comet, nor much anything else except the Olympia/Lacey train station, where we tarried for, like, twenty seconds. Now seems like a good time to put on my headphones and go into a train trance for a while.

10:07 pm. I have achieved the zen that can only be accessed while listening to sentimental music on a night train. Also we stopped in Centralia for what I can best describe as the timeless moment between one instant and the next, so maybe that pegasus prophesy wasn't so far off after all.

10:29 pm. What can that be in the moonglow? Seven plumes of vapor from the paper mills of Longview? I hope we're off again before the smell catches us.

10:30 pm. We were.

10:42 pm. Still no comet, but a rose gold three-quarter moon has entered my window. But now it's gone again, that quickly. Clouds? A change of direction? Ah, yes, there you are behind me, out ahead of the train, Wherever you're goin', I'm goin' your way.

10:51 pm. Moon guide or no, we've slowed to a creep as we defer to a freight train. Those crates of toilet paper and play doh and turtle food mustn't be delayed.

10:59 pm. There goes that freight train, and now our boilerman is shoveling coal again. Let's goooo! (Spoke too soon. Snailsville: Population—us.)

11:05 pm. Back at full speed. We're now ten minutes from our supposed arrival time, but Vancouver still guards the way home like a bridge troll. Exactly like a bridge troll. I've just realized that Vancouver, Washington is absolutely a bridge troll. This precisely describes and explains the attitude of that pugnacious little city.

11:18 pm. Vancouver station. A surprising number of people getting off here. Too afraid to answer Vancouver's questions three, one presumes.

11:23 pm. We're over the Columbia, and now across. Just a few short minutes before I collapse into the waiting arms of Mrs. Tycoon, who is generously up past her bedtime at the whim of Jonathan Amtrak's notorious watch. And now we've forded the Willamette, and I can see the downtown lights beyond the shipyard. Here's Highway 30 and the giant fuel tanks that will collapse and kill us all when the earthquake comes. That puts the station just ahead, so I'll sign off. Thanks for riding along with me!

(Final update: Wheels stopped at 11:44 pm. I followed the baggage trolley down the platform, and smiled to note that the total number of checked bags for the entire train was 2.)