Vegas Trip - Day 1 🎲
6:15am - On train to LA Union Station
The sun is slowly rising as I board the train to the Los Angeles marketplace - where workers trade percentages of their lives for hunks of metal fashioned into coins.
Most sit with heads nestled into jackets or their hands, getting a last bit of rest before punching in and out, turning around to come home and let the Sisyphean boulder roll back down the hill before waking up the next morning to do it all again - over and over - until their physical body dies or retires - their souls having died years ago. When the first death occurred, they don't quite remember, there wasn't a ceremony to make its passing.
After I snapped this woman sleeping, she sat bolt upright, looked around, remembered where she was and moved to a front-facing seat, courageously, if futility, facing her tormentor(s) head-on as she’s brought into the fold.
At this moment, I feel a pang of dread, remembering when, I too, was this woman, trading life for metal.
But today is different. I’m awake early by choice, traversing the land, to rise above it for 50 minutes at 400mph, before settling into the bosom of Las Vegas.
As I board the plane, I ask myself why I’m going there. I'm not sure. But the siren song of the city called out, and I, perhaps foolishly, answered.
