There's a feeling I get when I look to the west

This park used to be a whole lot quieter. Now there are trains every ten minutes. Just now a big coal train with more than a hundred cars (yes, I counted) took its time going by, and before that, something with a lot of those containers on it going the other way, screeching and clanging and making noise to wake the dead. The black and white ducks, that were peacefully bobbing on the smooth water near shore, took off for deeper water, but most of the people here never looked up, but the kids got all excited and climbed on the overpass to wave and shout at the trains. OK, I did that once when I was younger too but that was before I knew what was coming in and going out on those trains. 

Now that it's quieter I look across the water at the mountains again. It's mostly blue overhead, but out west it looks like another land, so covered in clouds that I can only see the darkest shadowy outlines of some of them. I would hope it would be clear, but this is good, too. It looks like another country or an island far away where everything is different. Like a citadel ringed by the steepest most impenetratable mountains. They don't have any trains over there. The sand and gravel are warm, and the log supports me. Where did this tree come from? Maybe some day someone will show me how to listen to them. Someone over there. There's nobody over here. If I didn't have to leave soon, I could sleep here in the sun but I need to call when I said I would so I can come out here again by myself. Like I would let anything happen to me. I blend in. That's one of my powers. I need a better phone. I love the walk back. It's a dirt road through a little canyon and past an orchard, and when the people ahead go around the bend, I can be anywhere. It can be anyplace else and hundreds of years ago. I can think. I can plan.

Dumb kid just asked me what I'm writing. Where's her mother? I won't miss anybody over here. Now there's another train, looks just as long, every car is a new, shiny black tank making it look like a giant millipede or something. Each car has a flame logo on it and it moves a lot slower than the coal train. Time to go. I'll be back.