Let’s talk about trains

“Trains passed through the town four times a day, and Emily would offtimes bicycle down to see them. There wasn’t a station, just a Dairy Queen and a small park practically paved with long red Dairy Queen spoons. Three of the trains would stop and people would get on and off, but the fourth train just tore past, whistles wailing, and Emily particularly admired this one.” - Joy Williams, The Quick and the Dead

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“It was like the classic scene in the movies where one lover is on the train and one is on the platform and the train starts to pull away, and the lover on the platform begins to trot along and then jog and then sprint and then gives up altogether as the train speeds irrevocably off. Except in this case I was all the parts: I was the lover on the platform, I was the lover on the train. And I was also the train.” - Lorrie Moore, A Gate at the Stairs