girl on a train

(originally posted 10/14/2012)

Is there anything more electric than meeting the gaze of a cute stranger on a long train ride? Too bad this has nothing to do with that. Actually I should have called it “Girl Under a Train”… because that’s what it’s about.

I saw her lying across the tracks a few days ago. What brought my attention to the tracks in the first place was the piercing whistle of the approaching train. I couldn’t make out if she was unconscious or was bound and unable to move. At that point it didn’t make much difference; the train was almost on top of her. I could barely make out her features but I saw enough to know that I wasn’t going to be racing heroically to her aid and subjecting myself to possible injury. She was a little tubby and her face wasn’t cute enough to warrant that kind of behavior.

What’s that? You’re calling me a monster for that kind of thinking? Come on now. It’s time to grow up a little. Have you ever seen an ugly girl rescued heroically? Ever?! I’m friendly with both firemen and Search & Rescue guys and they’d be the first to admit the inverse relationship between how fat the girl is and how much peril they will subject themselves to. You think that offends fat girls to say that? Who knows it better than fat girls?! They live it. They have to be extra careful during floods and earthquakes because they know if they get themselves into a pickle they’ll be rescued only after the last supermodel has been found. I have a lot of fat readers and they’re laughing the loudest believe me.

Anyway. As I sat watching the train barrel down on this unknown female I sort of was wishing she was better looking. What guy doesn’t want to rescue a beautiful woman from certain death? You can imagine it any way you want… but every guy is just hoping that after the rescue that she’ll be so grateful that she’ll show him her boobs. That’s all. If I ever rescue anyone I think I’ll just come right out and ask to see ’em.

But this girl wasn’t hot. Thinking back on it I probably could have saved her. As I sat stirring my tea and waiting for it to cool down I was mentally going through the path I would have taken to reach her if she was cuter. The low fence I would have hurdled, the brush I would have had to run through, where I would have dragged her body off to the side moments before her untimely demise… yep, it would have been perfect if she hadn’t insisted on being so damn uncooperative regarding her looks.

My train of thought (get it?) was interrupted by the screeching of the trains breaks. Damn that was annoying. This endless high piercing squeal… it certainly got the attention of the young woman on the tracks because she started squirming something fierce! It appears she was bound after all. Who puts a homely girl on the tracks anyway? I understand the effort of tying up a beautiful girl and putting her on the train tracks to die in response to some grievous harm she has inflicted on you but a homely girl? Seems like a lot of effort to me.

So this screeching goes on for what seems like a full minute and it was crazy how close the train actually got to stopping in time. I mean, literally it ended up running over this girl by like ten feet. It was going sooooo slow when it got to her that I have to think it made a bad way to die ever worse. From my vantage point I could only see her feet as it went over her. They were snipped off neatly and both fell almost comically and lay next to the tracks. A pair of feet just sitting there on the ground is not something you see every day. I tried to get a picture with my camera phone but I was too far away to actually make out the feet and I didn’t want to get any closer in case some nosy policeman wanted to know what I had seen. By now the conductor (or driver or whatever they call themselves) had started to back that bad boy up. Time for me leave. If I had to see the bloody mess that girl had made I doubt I would have been able to finish my tea… and I’d just paid $2.95 for it at Starbucks after all. Waste not, want not.

Here’s the kicker. I’m sitting reading the paper today and it turns out the girl on the tracks was hot after all. Turns out the guy who had put here there had dressed her up in loose fitting clothing and messed up her hair to make sure no one rescued her! Can you imagine how shitty that made me feel?! I had my shot at saving a hottie and I let it slip through my hands! What kind of a sick bastard thinks of actually making the victim look frumpy before they tie her to the tracks?! How could I have known, right?

I guess I learned my lesson. Next time I’m just going to go ahead and rescue the girl even if she looks a bit average just in case she later turns out to be hot. Even if she is carrying a few extra pounds maybe she has a sister.