Hopping Trains

On Friday nights we’d sneak into the railyard and wait in the shadows between the floodlights for a train slow enough for us to hop, our hands already tingling with the promise of flight. We trotted beside the train, waiting for the right moment to grab a boxcar’s ladder and climb to the roof like outlaws— aware of the danger and thrilled by it— as the train gathered speed. We jumped as it rounded the curve— boots hitting gravel, hearts pounding— but a voice barked out of the dark, and then a dog, all teeth and fury, came tearing toward us. We bolted for the fence without looking back. We hit the chain-link fence at speed, scrambled like fugitives— I braced for asthma to take me but my lungs opened wide, no tightness, no fire, just breath pure and clean, lifting me over like I was born to run. I landed laughing— heart hammering, lungs still free— and something in me shifted. I had outrun fear, leapt past the story that said I couldn’t— and for the first time, I believed it.