While riding home on the train last night...

As I'm writing this I'm sitting on a commuter train on my way home, but the train is stopped on the tracks somewhere between two suburbs north of Chicago named Kenilworth and Winnetka. The conductor just announced over the PA system that we could be delayed here for up to an hour--the usual time it takes, he said. About 5 minutes ago an ambulance and a fire truck sped down the road that runs next to the tracks toward the rear end of the train.


Before the train stopped, and right after the engineer threw on the brakes, I heard an unusual sound. Everyone on the train looked up. It was like someone was throwing handfuls of pebbles at the side of the car we were in, or that we ran over some gravel, but, oddly, it didn't feel like we ran over anything! It was just an unusual rattling noise coming from below, which I will probably never forget. I was in the second passenger car behind the engine.


What occurred was that the train ran over someone at high speed. When the conductor said what happened, almost immediately afterward, everyone in my car groaned. I felt like I was going to vomit, but I didn't. From the sound of it I doubt anything was left of the person we hit except small fragments of flesh and bone. Their body had to have been completely pulverized. Strangely, right after the conductor's announcement, nearly everyone who had a cell phone in my car started calling people to tell them what happened.


Since I didn't hear any horn warning from the engine before we hit whoever it was, I think it must have been a suicide. I just hope it wasn't some kid walking down the tracks with headphones on or something. That usually happens when the engine is in the rear, however (on these push-pull trains), when it's harder to hear the train coming. What an awful way to die, though! If it was a suicide, they must have been extremely desperate. I guess I'll hear all about it on the network news tonight.


...an hour later and we're still sitting in the same location. It's dark outside now. I think they are almost finished with the police investigation, and with cleaning up the human remains, before they let the train move on again. When you encounter a violent death so close and sudden like this, you understand how fragile and fleeting life is, and it makes you glad and thankful to be alive--and very appreciative for the ones you love and care about. Too bad about the poor soul who conjured up these thoughts. I wonder what kind of a person he or she was...