There is no photo for a day like today

I saw a man die today. And I decided I want to be a mother. We were taking the train to the orphanage for a party. And we took the wrong train. And just as the one we needed to take was pulling into the station, a man slipped under. What I think I saw is this: a thin man with a dark plaid shirt slowly yet instantaneously sucked under the train. It seemed as though he turned into it, and reminded me of when you're learning to swim and you hunch over the edge before your body plunges. Anneke heard a woman scream. All I heard was the impact, and then a dog going crazy. 'Jen, let's go!' Emma pulled us away, as people rushed to look. I thought they had a greedy curiosity in their eyes, but they think people just wanted to find out if he was still alive and needed help. I don't think anyone could survive that. I'm glad I didn't see what came after.

All these questions, and we will never know. They thought he was blind, had a stick. So did he not hear it and try to jump and cross the tracks? Did he slip? Did he kill himself on purpose? And how much agency does someone really have in suicide? I wished to cry, to vomit. Instead I was intently aware of my own corporeality, of the tension in my face. In the taxi we were silent, all words seemed superfluous. The road blocks appeared smeared with blood, and I felt bile rising in my throat imagining this man, who was as alive as myself, a few feet from me, and then spread similarly along the tracks. What the hell was it? Red mud splashed during monsoons passed? Or was it the red wad that wallas chew and spit it clotted streams? I thought of our long train-rides to Michigan and the mysterious stops in muffled snowy nights when others jumped in front; I thought of Gaudi hit by a tram in Barcelona and left to die because they thought he was a pauper; of Kelsi and Emili's screams when Kasha was hit in the gorge, of what is left after a train passes over an animal. We seemed to pass hundreds of gory red broken apart watermelons and again I'd here the thunk of his body.

We went to the orphanage. We went to the most alive place possible. To glee, to loving needy touching tiny people. I didn't want to do anything at that moment. And then, suddenly, I did. I wanted to comfort them, I wanted to give them touch and laughter. Though they must have comforted me more than I could possibly have them. It is the most natural thing to be in the company of children. I danced with them in my arms to ludicrous Backstreet Boys music. I felt strongly that I want to be a parent some day- I really don't think the kid has to be biologically mine, I had this sense that I could love any one of these children with all my heart. I am just exhausted now. That's all.