From Word To Word

I have a suspicion that this piece would benefit from some introduction, but I am unsure that I can give it, so I guess you will just need to make of it what you can.

Hurtling

So, we’re on this train, and we’re hurtling along.  Actually, let me interrupt.  I hope you don’t mind that I’m using the word ‘hurtling’ here.  It’s too obvious a word, I know. It’s the sort of word people are always using to describe a train.  They might say ‘chugging’ instead, or maybe ’steaming’, but we’re talking about a diesel locomotive here, so most would just say ‘hurtling’ or something equally unoriginal.  What I like about the word ‘hurtle’, though, even if it lacks imagination, is that you can make it sound like a train running over the railroad ties.  You just need to put the emphasis on the second syllable.  You know, “hur-TEL, hur-TEL, hur-TEL.”  Say it a few times.  You’ll see what I mean.

Anyway, like I said, we’re hurtling along to the city.  That’s where we’re going, whether we want to or not. This is also why I think ‘hurtling’ is a good word, because it says to me that the train is out of control, which is true.  Not that someone isn’t in control of it, I hope, but it’s certainly out of my control.  Out of our control.  We’re going to the city, and there’s nothing we can do about it, assuming that we wanted to do something, though I’m not sure we do.  Trains always hurtle like this.  You never have any control over them.  Once you get on, you have to wait until they stop.  You don’t get a brake or a steering wheel.  You don’t get a chance to turn around or take the next exit or choose a different destination.  Trains just hurtle, and so we’re hurtling.

This is what I like about the train, now that I think about it.  You never have to decide what turn to take.  You never have to watch for an exit.  You never even have to pull a cord when it’s your stop.  You just get on or not, and when the train stops, you get off or not.  The rest is just being, just being on a train, letting it go where it’s going, letting it fulfill its destiny.  The rest is just hur-TEL, hur-TEL, hur-TEL.

Okay, I know this story isn’t getting anywhere very quickly.  I’ll try to stay on subject from here on in, I promise.  So, where was I?  Right.  We’re still on this train, just being on the train, and it is, should I say it again, hurtling toward the city, whether we like it or not, and we’re cut off from everything outside us.  We’re cut off by our speed, I think, and by our destination.

Of course, I should be careful of saying ‘our’ like this, careful of saying ‘we’, though I don’t know what to say instead.  There aren’t any better words I don’t think, but we should still be careful, because there isn’t really any ‘we’, and there isn’t really any ‘our’.  We’re as cut off from each other as we’re cut off from everything else.  The train hurtles, and we hurtle too. We have our own velocities, our own destinations.  We can’t turn to the right or the left.  There’s no exit for us to take.  We just hurtle.

I’m sorry for talking in metaphors like this.  I’m sure it’s only boring you.  I’m not at all saying that you’re like a train or even that you’re hurtling like a train, whatever that might mean.  I don’t know myself.  Actually, now that I’ve said it once, maybe you are like a train.  Just a little.  But I’m not very attached to the idea, so you can take it or leave it, whatever you like.

What I really mean to say is that there isn’t any ‘we’ here on the train.  No, that’s not even quite right.  What I really mean to say is that whatever ‘we’ there is here doesn’t mean much.  We’re only a ‘we’ because all of us are sitting here, just being on the train, all listening to the hur-TEL, hur-TEL, hur-TEL.  That’s our only ‘we’.

Except for our cellphones and laptops, of course.  These make a ‘we’ of sorts.  They keep us from being cut off by the train, more or less, in their way, don’t they?  Or maybe they don’t.  I don’t know.  Maybe they’re only looking for a ‘we’ that they never manage to find.  And maybe, though I said I wouldn’t talk like this any more, maybe we’re all hurtling along, hur-TEL, hur-TEL, hur-TEL, and calling from out of our velocities, our destinations, trying to make a ‘we’, creating the illusion of a ‘we’.  At least, that’s the sort of thing I might say if I thought it would interest you, which I’m sure it doesn’t.

You’d probably much rather I just went on with the story about the train.  I can understand that.  I’d want the same, if I were you.  I’d want to hear about where this train is going.  Actually, I was just about to say, “I’d want to hear about where this train is hurtling,” only you’re likely tired of the word ‘hurtling’ by this point.  Even I’m getting tired of it, but it’s hard to give up on a word once you’ve started with it, and I have a lot invested in this word by now, so we’ll both have to live with it.  I can’t avoid the sound anyway, not here.  It’s just hurt-TEL, hur-TEL, hur-TEL.  Hurtle, hurtle, hurtle.  There’s no escaping it.

In fact, I’m not sure that anything else about this story even matters.  If it does, and it might, for all I know, I certainly can’t tell it anymore.  Not with that sound in my ears: hur-TEL, hur-TEL, hur-TEL.  Hurtling.