MINDLESS MUSINGS

As kids, Wayne and I joined forces to collect cans for cash, and we were always on the lookout for new hunting grounds. One day while riding on a train I noticed how many cans were strewn across the tracks. People were obviously just tossing their empties out the window. So, I came up with the brilliant idea of collecting cans around the train tracks; what could possibly go wrong?

A few days later we found a hole in the fence and proceeded to do our hunting and gathering of cans. The only catch was that when we strayed too far from the hole in the fence there was no refuge along the side of the tracks, only solid rock or fence.

“Keep a keen lookout for trains when we went passed the safe zone” was our solution to that problem. Every time a train came we would scurry back to our little gap and wait until it passed.

As time went on, we became more and more complacent, and we walked further and further away from our shelter. We always managed to get back in time without too much drama.

Until that one time…

Wayne was way out in front of me and I was too busy filling my bag with those valuable aluminium gems. Wayne had moved around a bend and I lost sight of him. Then it happened… I heard him scream first “A train!” he yelled. “A train!”

As he rounded the bend and came into view, I could see the train bearing down on him; and me! It looked like something out of a movie; as if he was running in front of a green screen and the train was just a special effect. But this was no movie and that train was lethally real.

As I turned to run I realised just how far we had strayed from our safe haven. God help us!

So we were literally running for our lives. We couldn’t run into the middle and risk getting hit by a train from whichever direction they may be coming from. We had to get to that gap. I imagine it looking like Indiana Jones running from that giant boulder in ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’.

Like a gift from God I spotted a different gap we hadn’t noticed before and zeroed in on it like a guided missile. We were never going to get to the one we had been using all morning. I jumped into it and it was full of water; a few seconds later Wayne joined me and splash! We were both soaked.

We sat in that muddy water as the train zoomed past with its horn blaring. I can only imagine what the driver must have been thinking and it wouldn’t have been pleasant.

We dragged ourselves out of the murky water and staggered back to the hole in the fence. We hadn’t even ended up with that many cans. They looked a lot closer together when being viewed from a speeding train. In reality they were few and far between.

Wayne didn’t really have anything to say to me about my bright idea seeing as if he had so willingly participated. Soaked and very much shaken we went home and added the few cans to our collection and made sure never to let our parents know about our ridiculously dangerous cash getting scheme.