Man at the Tracks

Miles Davis - It's About That Time

Another day. As he stands at the tracks, contemplating the day's challenges, flashes of the past run through his head and the decisions he's made. He contemplates what it would have been like to have married the love of his life instead of the current situation he has chosen. The conflict of want now over the choices made at the time is an affliction within everyone, and it's this principle that calms him down and fights against jumping in the hopes of restarting again. Work for him is great but there's the nagging feeling of the "What if?" floating about in the miasma of his subconscious. Perhaps life would be different had he moved to another city or country. Perhaps the strains causing him pain now, would still be the same in another life. Jumping into the infinite space of alternate universes entertains him as pure mental indulgence, but that is just that and there is no escaping the "now". Regret passes through his fibers like a wave of heat, but is again subsided by the hope of tomorrow; where the train will take him. The train obviously takes him to his intended destination, but something in the back of his head tells him that there is more than just a train ride, more than just going to work. Going into tomorrow for an infinite number of future possibilities.

I stand on the otherside of the tracks making, clearly, an unfair evaluation from a momentary glance. I don't think or live in Japanese so I simply can't think like him, but part of me knows, that I too will be on his side of the tracks, retrospectively looking at my life and possible past decisions but knowing that nothing can be changed. I will walk my path looking backwards with natural fear of what will come. Things always change.