Coal Train Recollection

An ominous sense that something sinister was about to happen.

Uncle Marvin
and Aunt Wanda 
lived in a small 
but tall house
next to the railroad tracks
in Marmet, West Virginia.

I was little 
but my recollections 
are big. Like
going to sleep upstairs 
with my brother and sister and cousins
and being awaken 
in the middle of the night 
by a shrill train whistle
and the screech 
of the coal train’s wheels 
on the steel tracks just outside 
and the reflection 
of its bright headlight 
bouncing back and forth 
on the walls
inside the bedroom 
where we slept.

Coal train winding through the hills of West Virginia. Photo by Eric Miller

The noise was deafening, 
filling the house with vibrations 
and an ominous sense 
that something sinister 
was about to happen.

Then it all faded. 
The room was dark,
again, and the last thing 
I remember
before falling back asleep 
was the faint shrill whistle 
far in the distance, the ratatat 
of the steel wheels on the tracks 
less and less
something I could hear
or needed to fear.

Sunshine through the windows
woke me the next morning. 
Dust fairies floated 
in the light
slicing through the room
that looked out 
over the train tracks.

When we were all awake,
my cousin Wade rushed us
to get dressed, 
then hurried us to the tracks 
where he picked up 
pennies he had laid on the rails
the evening before,
each flattened
by the train 
that had haunted 
my sleep.

The pennies were now magical 
oblong slivers of copper 
the size of our thumb print
and nearly as thin 
as a sheet of paper.

I was mesmerized!

“You got a penny, Richard?”, 
Wade, asked. 
“I do!”
“Then it’s your turn.”

With my penny on the track,
I laid down 
that night as excited 
as if it were Christmas Eve. 

I fell asleep dreaming 
of the return of the coal train, 
the echo of its whistle, 
and the screech 
of its steel wheels 
and their fading ratatat 
on the tracks.