Finally got that second date on Friday. As you'll recall she insisted on taking her to the pearl district for some new overpriced vegan bistro. The food was bland and the atmosphere was sparse at best, part of the "Portland Cuisine" allure. I don't get it personally, maybe I'll appreciate it when I become you but I cant see myself returning there. There was this new song on the radio in the background. I found myself trying to discern the letters being spelled out over the din of the restaurant but after some concentration I could read the spelling. I looked it up earlier and it spells LIFEGOESON, by Noah and the Whale. Being a child of the catechism I appreciated the wink in the name. No one remembers the name Jonah anyway. It was only after learning the name of the song did I realize I had been sitting in utter silence with her, and she had not said a word or looked in the least bit interested in anything but her salad. It was a strange silence.

On the ride home we took a wrong turn, at her insistence, and got stuck behind a train crossing. It took what seemed like hours to go by, even at a moderately fast speed. In the darkness of the crossing with my headlights I thought I saw a familiar figure reaching out to me from behind the crossing barrier. No sooner had I seen it than did it slip away with the train, headed north to Seattle. I tried to point it out to her before it disappeared but she seemed more interested in staring vacantly into the side view mirror before rousing too late to see anything. I took her home finally but my vision started to crack with iridescent fractures and I knew a migraine was coming on. She seemed overtly warm, almost inviting when I reached her door but I knew the pain to come was going to be immense and I rushed home as soon as possible. I suffered from the moment I laid down until just a few hours before writing this.

I swear I saw someone on those train tracks