By Emily Vieyra-Haley

I was outside hanging laundry. I could smell the wild thyme. The sun blazed through the clouds and I could feel the air heavy with heat, lumbering. The shrill call of the train whistle pierced that air. I knew in that instant I was hearing as people have been hearing for a hundred years and I was there, they were here, and we were one. Over the mountains, jolting through farmhouses, glancing off the winding waters of Batavia Kill. I stood still, closing my eyes for the time and space it took for the whistle to announce the train’s advent. The whistle stopped. I was there.