Badlands - Week 5 - Kathryn Rydberg

     Well, I was finally on my way out of the Midwest. I was taking the train West, to California. It had surely taken a long enough time to get to this point. Now that I was here, I didn't feel as exhilarated as I might have. The continuity and rhythm of traveling had lulled me into a sort of gentle contentment. I was okay with it because, maybe that feeling was what I had been exhilarated about.
     Right now, though I actually wasn't traveling. Or I was, but I wasn't in motion. I was stopped at a train depot (once you're in a town small enough, they're depots and not stations) somewhere in Wyoming. Or Colorado. Anyways, I was there, along with a handful of other cross-country travelers from my train and a sizable number of local people.
     One of these local people was a woman who sat next to me on a bunch as I was eating a sandwich. She didn't seem to be doing anything and certainly wanted to talk.
     "How are you?" She started.
     "Fine, yourself?" I wasn't particularly in the mood to have a conversation with a stranger.
     "I mean, it's just a shame isn't it?" She asked. I looked at her, puzzled. She was gesturing towards a dark corner of the depot, and my eyes followed the direction of her hand. I saw a vague shape, and another moment passed before I realized it was a coffin. That explained why there were so many local people here then. "Sending him back to his mother and father in Omaha," the woman offered some explanation.
     "What happened?" I was shocked by the appearance of such a somber symbol of death in this quotidian scene.
     "Made no sense. Apparently some good-for-nothing fellow just came to his house, stole some of his things, and killed him and his maid. He had a wife and three kids that were out of the house at the time. They still haven't caught the guy."
     I finished my sandwich and said goodbye to the woman. I had no words of comfort to offer her, so I didn't try. I got back on the train and continued looking out at the landscape as it passed, but now the troubling thought of such senseless loss permeated my feelings.