Wishes Ride Empty Trains

Out the diner’s front window, steamed with morning condensation and the sighs of broken men, a train fled across the empty prairie. The treeless plains wished for life, but only the train’s relentless clacking over worn rails could be heard, like nails hammered into coffins.

“Mary, refill please,” asked one of the diner’s regulars. “This here cup’s pretty damn cold, cold as my first wife on the winter solstice,” he said as he clinked his spoon on the coffee mug to the tune of Hank Williams’ “Lovesick Blues.”

He was like her other customers, men whose dreams had run from them faster than their once good credit, their losses having grown like bad debt, empty shot glasses lined up on the bar counter like orphans.

Mary, entombed in their misery, watched the lone trains crawl past the diner’s window, going nowhere.