Yesterday morning, the train stopped before we got to Newton, and we were there on the tracks for awhile before we learned the reason why: an injury, which we later learned was a fatality. We adopted the language the conductor and train staff used, in our phone calls and text messages, struck and fatality, not killed, not suicide. On the way back into Boston last night, we rode on those same tracks, but no one (at least no one official, and no passengers publicly) acknowledged what had happened, which felt sad and strange and it was hard not to think about the grotesque erasure happening with each passing train. Even stranger this morning, when we (the regulars, most of the same staff) were all back on that same train, still no one noting or acknowledging, and nothing in the paper, which D. tells me is what happens when it’s a suicide and not an accident caused-otherwise. Anyway, I’m remembering.

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