The Place For My Writers Notes

Original posting 17 November 2008

A short sketch.

It's a lovely fall morning here, with the sun shining and the air crisp. And on the way to work, one of the neighbor boys stopped me with a question. He was wearing his school uniform, black shoes, white socks, black shorts, black jacket and white shirt, little black cap, and his black leather backpack. He had been digging in the dirt, but stopped when he saw me and stood up.

Then he looked at me and asked in Japanese, "Do you know the train of snails?"

I paused, ran the question through my slow translation process again and it still came out as a train of snails, and then answered him, "No, I don't think I do."

He then pointed up the road ahead of us and advised me to watch for it.

I thanked him and went on. I will admit, I looked as I went, wondering just what he meant. I didn't see anything that seemed to fit. And at the office, I poked around some in my online Japanese resources -- yep, that's train of snails, and nope, nothing seems to fit. So I'm still a little baffled as to what he was referring to. But I do admire the image that it summons to my mind, of a set of snails, all slipping along in line, forging ahead at their pace to a goal that only snails can imagine.

There is a slight vagrant thought that the backpacks that the kids wear to school could be snail shells, but that's a pretty sophisticated metaphor for a little boy. Although now that I think about it, they do tend to line up and walk along, one after the other. No trail of spit, though . . . I doubt that he meant that. But what a fascinating image to hold up to the world on this fall morning, and wonder where it fits. A train of snails . . .

There are other neighbors who tell me that this boy is a bit odd, and to just ignore what he says. But you know, I don't think I've had anyone else introduce me to the snail express, and that's pretty cool.

inching along in the morning sunshine