The rails crossed over eachother in a tangle of lines like words in a puzzle and they threw the ashes out the window with the goldfish vomit of the small Spanish children who cried at the whistle of the train. They gathered the rail cars in the yard of all nations and the rust guard waved us the final maze miles like checkers and chess. It was hard to fit the whole world in one city.

We came over bridges and tossed the sacks of corn husks and ashes out the window into the water and the whislte sounded and Mark took Eve up to the front of the train and spoke with her earnestly and I watched their mouths move and thier eyes meet and I felt suddenly alone and worried and I wished that the Spaniard two seats up would stop muttering: “Somos todos que van a morir.” It was getting on my nerves.

The land flattened out and the Turks road beside the rails in a convoy of old school buses and dump trucks. The women waved out the windows and the Turks waved back and it all seemd very merry untill the Spaniard two seats up started crying. He’d seemed tough as nails in his red tunic and cone hat, but we were getting close now to the Capitol and everything was coming unglued.