I board a train headed north this time, and as there is no one near me to talk to and as I am tired from my time in Eustis, I begin to doze. I wake up to a low jingling sound, like keys being tossed back and forth. I turn around, and see two police officers escorting a chained man through the aisles. They all sit together a few rows behind me. I didn't know that they escorted prisoners on passenger trains like this. I wonder what his crime was; it couldn't have been murder, or they wouldn't have let him on the train, but he must have done something significant, or they wouldn't be transporting him at all.
I get up and walk to the washroom at the back, slowly, so that I can get a look at the new guest aboard our train. He is handsome, but his face and clothes are dirty. I suppose they must not care too much for the cleanliness of prisoners. As I return from the washroom, all of a sudden this man bursts into laughter as I pass his row. He begins to thrash about, but doesn't look as though he is escaping. One of the officers looks to me and apologizes for the "madman" in the train. All of a sudden he stops, and stares out the window. Another train is passing us in the opposite direction. I'm not quite sure what he is looking at in the blur of that train, but once it is gone he looks away and mutters.
"What is that?" the officer asks. The man mutters again. "What?"
The man bursts out laughing, and after about two minutes of this he has quieted down and closed his eyes. I sit down in my seat, and close mine, slipping into a fitful sleep to the tune of mad laughter.
No comments:
Post a Comment