The other night I heard the distant, lonely clanging of a train’s bell as commuter train pulled into the local station. It was late a weekday evening and the house was quiet. I forget which evening it was because the days all run together working from home. The house was quite with everyone except me asleep. I was siting in an overstuffed chair in our sun room. A pool of light from the reading lamp encircled me as I paused from writing in my journal.
I closed my eyes and imagined the train pulling into the station completely empty. The late train usually didn’t have a lot of riders to begin with, but during the pandemic, and late in the evening, I’m certain ridership was zero. The very fact I could hear that faint bell from far off, and through closed windows, spoke to how quiet my local world had become in the past few weeks thanks to COVID-19.
Thus far, no one we know has the virus and we aren’t in a financial crisis from it, so the threat seems distant, far away.
Like the clanging of a distant train bell…
copyright 2020 Christopher Donahue