The Evening Train

Patience, Prudence and Hope are waiting on wooden benches at Pacific Central, Train and Bus Station. Prudence is plaiting Hope’s long, wiry hair into small ropes. She ties the frayed ends in rubber bands. Patience sits still and upright, her canvas bag under her arm she is thinking about how much she detests Jack Kerouac, a tattered corner of On the Road just barely visible in Hope’s coat pocket. The depot echoes deeply with the sound of a child crying from the farthest westerly side of the building. The Amtrak is late. Many eyes are trained on the giant four-sided brass clock, suspended from the cathedral-like vaulted ceiling’s center. Their ears are somewhere east, anticipating the clatter of a two stroke, 16 cylinder Engine down the line.