On November 24th, 1936, the frame of a wooden Chicago Rapid Transit train was left wrapped around an all-steel Chicago, North Shore & Milwaukee Railroad interurban that failed to stop at the Granville stop.

The passenger pulled out alive was the tenth person to die.

In the 70s, I was twelve and riding the ‘L’ on my own.

One November evening, I was freezing on that same nineteenth-century wooden platform.

The Hawk was howling. No traffic noise, no planes, no music: Just the wind with a name off the water of the lake a few blocks east.

Adolescently underdressed, I huddled against the plywood partition in the center of the platform with a Doublemint Gum ad on its side.

A soft veil of precipitation coated the well-polished planks of the platform in a thin film of moisture as the wind whisked away any heat.

I shivered. No gum, my teeth chattered.

There was nobody else about, and I wanted to see around the bend or find a beam of light pulling a train.

So I stepped toward the edge of the platform. The treads on my scuffed Converse slid across black ice… And there was a train coming in fast… I hadn’t heard it… The wind was all I’d heard… But there was a train… The ice was solid and slick… The platform old and smooth… My rubber soles well-run and worn… And the wind sailed me over, into the path of that train…

Someone grabbed me by my thin collar… Threw me hard against the partition… I fell… The train squealed… Stopped… The doors banged opened… I leaped on… The doors clanged shut.

I was alone in an empty, warm car at the beginning of its run.

And I checked as we left: There was no one on that platform. Only the Doublemint twins smiled back at me as the train picked up speed toward the next station.

# # #

Pawel Grajnert is a writer/filmmaker working in the US and Poland.

Photo: Sophie Dale