We’re on that train that’s going by in the distance, confined to its track like a blood fluke to a vein. Instead of blood, it feeds on boredom — a green blur. We stop at stations just long enough to read the advertisements and gaze at the litter. One hoarding for a summer movie reads: “How do you catch a serial killer if he’s invisible?” Another, for a bank, promises no card tricks. In the Quiet Carriage, phones vibrate in bags and pockets like cicadas struck dumb by thirst. You picture all this from the seat of a combine harvester, spiraling toward the center of a field of wheat.
Dave Bonta (bio) often suffers from imposter syndrome, but not in a bad way — more like some kind of flower-breathing dragon, pot-bellied and igneous. Be that as it may, all of his writing here is available for reuse and creative remix under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. For attribution in printed material, his name (Dave Bonta) will suffice, but for web use, please link back to the original. Contact him for permission to waive the “share alike” provision (e.g. for use in a conventionally copyrighted work).