tori IV

I've thought about the way I first heard it phrased, how I repeated it to others close to me. 

"stepped in front of a train."

I'd heard that phrasing before, years ago.  It was when my friend, Jon, lost his sister.  Weeks before it happened, he had told me that he worried about her, that he knew she battled depression.  And then I learned that she had died, and I asked our mutual friend what happened.  He said, "she committed suicide. she stepped in front of a semi."

I think when someone leaves us that way, we use that particular string of words because it highlights how small and light the person was, in comparison to the darkness that overtook them.  They "step," not stand nor walk nor move, and the mass of the thing coming at them does the rest.

I tried to find more information on people who died on railroad tracks. I found an article that said the force of a train hitting a car was something like 400 to 1.  I tried, briefly, to calculate the proportion of a train to a person, but I felt sick. It was too much.

I think of her last act as a symbol, but one I have trouble assigning meaning to correctly.  I asked Jon what he made of his sister's final act, but he got choked up and couldn't speak to it.  It was unfair of me to ask.

But I was desperate for something I'm not sure is there.  I think it means my sister hated herself.  I think it means she was certain she wanted to die.  I think it means she maybe wanted to spare my parents the horror of finding her, but I'm very uncertain of that.  I think, along with the previous speculation, that maybe the fact that she got out of my mom's car meant she wanted to spare my parents any further casualty. I think she didn't think of the conductor, although he says he blew warning horns, desperate pleas to save her and himself.

But ultimately I just don't know. I heard of a girl who died on those same train tracks, a few miles farther south of where Tori died. She was a student at the college I went to. She tweeted something really sad and disillusioned before she pulled her car onto the train tracks and waited. 

Tori parked my mom's car, and then got out. I don't know how long she waited. If she waited, if she ran. But she did step in front of the train, without the metal shell of a car around her, with the night in her face and probably the wind (it's West Texas, so there's always this wind) on her skin.