A Brief and Charming Trip North.

Platform fifteen at 4:33. Upper deck, green vinyl sleek seats.

Cue north suburban scenery.

Lake Forest, Illinois.
Quaint. Sun setting pink on a middle class neighborhood.

A church and a strip mall and an out of place green and white fast food establishment.

Most excellent wait service.

“Big” Mac is an overstatement

Forty-five minute walk toward some liberal art writing retreat on a cement stream littered with trees. An hour and a half is all we can spare. Not enough to walk. Call a cab. It doesn’t show.

We give up.

We get distracted.

Circle three sidewalks and a parking lot. Make the short journey one square block.

See a bank and an empty gas station. Perched above pines a pale cuticle shaped satellite. Astral decor for centuries. Accessory to everything.

Skin looking good underneath a waxing “Wolf Moon.”

Outside.

The train station is deserted.

Inside.

A vagabond talks to a dark man mopping.

The train does not arrive.

Stranded in Lake Forest.

An old-fashioned clock tells the time. A big clock with both hands points toward “panic.”

Quickly calmed down -Sunday schedule reads that we are to leave at 9:00.

Seconds smoke by until there’s one last cigarette.

At 8:55, we're sailing south on once green, now burgundy, sleek vinyl seats.