A train, not necessarily running away, but hurtling through the countryside with no intention of stopping. This is how it felt with our fast friends. Time inside the train was on pause, as if in Las Vegas where there are no clocks and you can't figure out if it's morning or night. You're disoriented. You know you have to work in the morning, but you don't want to be an old fuddy-duddy, even though you're in your forties, nearly your fifties, and should know better than to be doing any of this. The countryside is a pastoral blur that hardly matters. Inside the train is a forest. The boles are dark chocolate in mostly dim lighting -- string lights that dapple, on and off -- and coarse as you make your way among them. Are they people?
She's painting your portrait and you look tired. She apologizes, starts to rip it in half, but you stop her. You want to keep it. To remember how it was on this train. This is the dining car, but no one is receiving nourishment. It's all alcohol, weed, acid. But the acid is happening in secret nooks. They don't invite you because they know you well enough to know you won't.
You'd like to see outside, to be able to see the world again. This crowd is having joyless fun. Oblivion. You don't know these people. You know your partner. He's trying, but he's not part of this either. You want to be present in a true forest, not this drunken façade. You grab your partner's hand and leap.