Kandy, Sri Lanka

Kandy, Sri Lanka
December, 2015

There are fish living in the planters and in the puddles along the rails at the train station in Kandy. Christy dips her fingers into the water and the tiny fish come to eat, gleaning the energy that she shakes from her sleeves. I stand along the edge of the platform and watch the water ripple and jump as the train arrives. My dad once told me that Indians would press their ears to the rails and listen as destiny manifested. I wonder if the fish feel the same vibrations as the train grinds to a slow and bumps into the thick rubber at the end of the line.

We board the train and can’t find seats. We don’t know how to read the tiny tickets that feel too thick and are written in Sinhalese. I find a place next to an open door and sit on the floor. The train starts to move and I swing my feet out. The air grows cooler and my ears pop as we climb up to the top of Ceylon. The sun is bright and the train hugs the curves and peers dangerously over the cliffs.

We pass through tea plantations and I watch the women and men slowly move through green mazes, filling their baskets. The earth is cut and stepped and steep. I sit in the door with my feet dangling and watch the blue cars bend around the rails in front of me. I hear them jostle before I feel the shutters.

We pass through rough tunnels and the children scream and yell and water seeps down the dark walls. The tunnels glisten at their beginning and at their end. We pass from the dark and the light captures individual drops of water as they fall through the cracks.