Passengers

 

~ a short story ~

Do you ever think about how when you are riding on a train, you can only see what is passing by? The conductor is the only one who has a clear vision of where the train is going. He calls the shots and arranges the stops. 

Sometimes you have to wait at a stop you don't want to be at . . . because it was for someone else. Either one passenger gets off, never to get back on, or one passenger joins you to your destination . . . or perhaps only for a season until they get off a stop before yours. 

Part of what makes the journey are the passengers, but its also what you see looking out the window. There's day and there's night. There are rainbows and storms. There are those moments when the light hits the window just so and spills onto your lap. There is a calmness to the humdrum rhythm of the ride that sets your traveling in motion . . . a calmness born of the knowledge you are in good hands with the conductor. 

You live for the day when you get to the front of the train and see the conductor and "sound the trumpet" by pulling that whistle. After that, I'm not sure if you want to get off the train anymore at the stop you intended. Maybe you decide to ride the train to the end of the line to see what's there.

And then you ask yourself, was it the ticket, the train, the conductor, or the passengers who got you there? Or maybe the point was just to be on His train, wherever it went . . .

(Originally written 10 - 7 - 21, copyrighted by Therese J. Roberts)