Kasha
<< 12:15 a.m. - Monday, Jun. 28, 2004 >>
I don�t know if I can stand the wail of a train at night anymore. They stopped the trains for us, you know. The policeman saw us burst into tears when the second one flew down the already bloodied tracks. I don�t know how to rewind the story to make it as traumatic as it was.

Emili saw it before it even came. Kasha trotting along the tracks and us sliding in gravel; safe. I should have kept Kasha on her leash. I should have run to her when we saw the train. A million �should haves� and not one of them can change the situation. Not one of them can make me feel better. If we blame ourselves for our unknowing decisions, we won�t ever escape them. I can�t do that.

We�ve all seen it played in movies like Fried Green Tomatoes and Stand by Me, but nothing can compare to watching a movie scene play itself out in the reality that is your life. We called to her, I screamed, she screamed. I was a solid block of stone and stood stupidly, while Emili ran up to try to grab my dog. She didn�t hear us soon enough. Turned to see the train and then looked back at us, and it began. The last time I saw her alive. She flipped in the air; jarred so hard by the sheer speed and force of the train and lay quietly under the tracks. The train was too long; it kept going as Emili and I screamed. Screamed so loud. So surreal. And all with a horribly loud silence cutting through.

And when it passed and everything was quiet I saw her. Twenty feet off. Placed perfectly between the tracks. There was no blood I could see, and so I maintained the illusion that there might be a chance of her being okay. But as we neared her body, a sliced organ lay off the tracks, and farther on blood and intestine. Emili said her rib cage had cracked. She laid flowers around her and did all the things I couldn�t manage.

I don�t know how to end this. I don�t feel like it is over.