The Missed Train
Written by Lorra Heutmaker
Today was not unlike any other summer day, sunny and warm, grey skies giving a hint that rain was coming. The tall grass swayed slightly in the midday breeze. The blanket of dandelions gave up a sweet smell like that of honey. Despite the tall grass Laura could
clearly see the valley below from where she was standing at the top of the hill. Lying at the bottom of the hill was a pair of train tracks running from East to West. She followed the tracks up eastward as far as her eyes could see, not too far into the distance she noticed a small figure walking along in the middle of the two rails. The person was wearing a blue polo shirt, jean pants and white sneakers; he looked to be about 9 or 10 years old boy. Her attention was drawn past the boy to the distant sound of an oncoming train. Laura immediately wondered if the boy heard the train, he made no signs of being aware that a train was bearing down on him. Her first reaction was to scream out to the boy, the words never made it out of her mouth, instead, she stood there watching unable to voice what she was thinking, her body unwilling to cooperate with her brain. There was no urgency in her thoughts. It was at this point that she suddenly woke up startled. It took her a few minutes to realize that it was just a dream. It felt so real, sort of like an out of the body experience.
She spoke to no one about the
dream, passit off as a nightmare, something she watched on TV manifesting itself in her dream. It took her awhile to go back to sleep, a troubled sleep. When she woke the dream still lingered with her. As the day wore on she soon pushed all thoughts about the dream out of her head. It was the summer and her children were not in school so her days were long and busy. Most days passed rather quickly doing chores, going out with the kids or just relaxing around the house. The dream was soon forgotten.
It had been several weeks that passed before she had the dream again. She was standing
on top of the hill looking down, it was like an instant replay except this time the boy was
closer, no longer a figure in the distance, the figure appeared to be exactly what she thought, a
boy. His straight black hair hung down around his ears to the top of his shoulders. The conductor blew the whistle. It was as if she was watching a movie, seeing but not feeling, detached from the events unfolding in front of her. Laura asked herself, more as a puzzle than a surprise, if the conductor saw the boy and blew the whistle as a warning of his approach or was it that he did not see him and blew the whistle as he customarily did so when approaching a traffic crossing? The train was bearing down on the boy. She woke with a startled gasp. Unable to go back to sleep she sat up, swinging her legs out of bed, she felt heavy and tired. This worried her,
the same dream twice, what are the odds? Laura decided to call her mother later that day to
discuss the dreams and see if she had any insight into why they might be occurring. It just so
happened that her mother was pretty good at reading the tarot cards and the thought that these
dreams might be coming as a warning did not seem to far stretched.
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