Eyes heavy, crust in the corners like tiny crumbs of bread, her body fights the exhaustion and stiffness that saturates her young being. Her movements feel rigid and artificial. In the distance, the train’s horn raises their senses, summoning its approach. Their stomachs knot with anticipation, the morning hunger replaced by nerves. Metal clack against metal, picking up speed. “We gotta be quick,” Trot told her as they rush from the brushy area where they had lain.

Out of breath already, Trot tells Anne, “Least we won’t see no bulls out here.”

“Bulls?” Anne questioned.

“Railroad cops. They always do their rounds on the yard.”

Running and half limping through the weeds, dew soaking the legs of their jeans, feet smashing down on the trash strewn about the area: soda bottles, beer cans, cigarette packs, and candy wrappers. Seeing all this garbage reminds her of home, of what she is running from, leaving behind. And fear of the unknown sinks away, in its place a smirk. Because refuse is familiar. In fact, it is all she has ever known.

Anne’s heart is skipping beats, pounding like that of a marathon runner in the last miles of the race. Feeling pressure ball up in her throat. Running down through a ditch with her gimp leg, the earth dropping, pack on her back weighing her down, then hitting the graveled edge of the right-of-way, feet digging hard, the pop of the grooved steel wheels meeting the rounded I-beam, crossing the break of the high-quality alloy tracks, hands reaching for the metal ladder. Closing in. Running harder. Burning thighs and hips. Fingers reaching. That tentative smirk slowly softening into a hesitant smile. Though she worries about losing her grip. Her footing. She would slip. The wheels would be unforgiving, parting skin and bone like butter and ending her uncertain future before it even began. At the same time, the fear feeds another side of her brain, which yearns for the adventurous unknown.

Bubble-lettered graffiti, bold and shadowed by color, decorates the dull railcars. Feet digging, hands reaching in, pushing from the balls of her feet, she feels the extension of tendon and muscle. Hands grabbing, Anne pulls herself to the ladder, forearms and biceps flexed, every fiber in her body engaged. Taking each step up onto the rough platform, her thighs, calves, and hips burn, her whole body shakes. The ankle throbs. The smile is no longer hesitant as she feels a glimmer of hope for what is down the tracks. To come next. Whatever it is has to be better than what she has left behind.