Rails
I have been staring at subway tracks for about a quarter of a century. Not continuously of course but at random intervals of varying duration. I would bet that I have spent more time staring at subway tracks (and the rails in particular) than 99% of the people alive on earth today which is of course a mathematical trick since probably at least 80% of the world’s population has never even been in a subway.
The tracks lay there but if you stare at them long enough and pay close attention you can hear them speak. When a train is coming they make a sound like hailstones on a tin roof before the lights of the train even reach the station. If you watch carefully you’ll know that a train is approaching even before the rails begin to talk because you’ll see mice running out from under the rails. The mice feel the vibration of the approaching train before you can hear it and they run from under the rails into the gully separating the tracks or they scurry under the platform. The mice are more of an off-peak phenomenon; they aren’t usually around during rush hour because the trains are too frequent for them to become fully engaged in their below-rail foraging.
The subway rails are different from elevated train rails. For one thing there aren’t any mice under elevated train rails because they would just fall through the ties to the street below. For another the language that elevated train rails speak is different from the language of the subway rails. When a train is approaching an elevated station the whole structure creaks and whines and wobbles and the station sounds more like a haunted house then anything else assuming you like your haunted houses filled with dozens if not hundreds of travelers.
Whether the rails are subway rails or elevated rails they’re always parallel except for where trains switch tracks and the rails magically transform express trains into local trains or local trains into express trains or where the trains switch tracks in the rail yards to where they go to sleep for the night or the day or whenever they aren’t carrying people around. Trains get to sleep, they get to rest, eventually they get worn out and they get dumped offshore for coral reefs or they get taken apart and become parts of other trains without even the requirement of an organ donor card. Rails lay there, they lay there quiet and still. They lay there waiting to be rolled over repeatedly and with familiarity like the ground you walked to and from school back and forth back and forth. They lay there in the dark waiting to be oh so briefly used, rolled over in an instant and then they lay there some more just waiting for someone to notice.
The tracks lay there but if you stare at them long enough and pay close attention you can hear them speak. When a train is coming they make a sound like hailstones on a tin roof before the lights of the train even reach the station. If you watch carefully you’ll know that a train is approaching even before the rails begin to talk because you’ll see mice running out from under the rails. The mice feel the vibration of the approaching train before you can hear it and they run from under the rails into the gully separating the tracks or they scurry under the platform. The mice are more of an off-peak phenomenon; they aren’t usually around during rush hour because the trains are too frequent for them to become fully engaged in their below-rail foraging.
The subway rails are different from elevated train rails. For one thing there aren’t any mice under elevated train rails because they would just fall through the ties to the street below. For another the language that elevated train rails speak is different from the language of the subway rails. When a train is approaching an elevated station the whole structure creaks and whines and wobbles and the station sounds more like a haunted house then anything else assuming you like your haunted houses filled with dozens if not hundreds of travelers.
Whether the rails are subway rails or elevated rails they’re always parallel except for where trains switch tracks and the rails magically transform express trains into local trains or local trains into express trains or where the trains switch tracks in the rail yards to where they go to sleep for the night or the day or whenever they aren’t carrying people around. Trains get to sleep, they get to rest, eventually they get worn out and they get dumped offshore for coral reefs or they get taken apart and become parts of other trains without even the requirement of an organ donor card. Rails lay there, they lay there quiet and still. They lay there waiting to be rolled over repeatedly and with familiarity like the ground you walked to and from school back and forth back and forth. They lay there in the dark waiting to be oh so briefly used, rolled over in an instant and then they lay there some more just waiting for someone to notice.
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