we're sitting on the train in the station waiting for the conductor's whistle in a booth across from an angry-looking old man whom neither of us really wants to be sitting across from but as they say them's the breaks at least we have each other to talk to and can pretend to be asleep or something if he tries to talk to us 'cause you just know he's the type to start a non sequitur conversation with a stranger on a train giving out about the youth or whatever and of course us technically being the youth of today we'd take the broad side of his speech about how we made the world a frightening place by going off to war with everyone and leaving him a poor old man alone in his house shaking afear'd that he'll get bombed like they did in dubya dubya two or whatever and i'll want to say that it's really not our fault and that we didn't want to go to war and that we're just two peace loving hippy kids on our way to see some bands in new york and we just like to ride around on trains because we want to see all of america and hopefully someday the rest of the world but for now we're just taking ourselves and the world one step at a time and making our way to new york but then maybe he'll say that it's kids like us doing nothing slackers like us who are keeping the wars going because we're just sitting here on a damn train going to a damn concert instead of trying to make a difference he'll say kids like us who just sit on their asses slackers like us who do drugs all day and listen to music all the time will never make a difference because nobody will listen to us because we're the laughing stock of the country and it's our generation who needs to be respected because it's our generation who are the future and then i'll say to him that we are making a difference man we are we're going to this concert where everyone's gonna be there and it's all peace and goodwill and love and nobody wants a war and we're gonna say that we don't want a war and there's just love and flowers man love and flowers and music it's the music that says everything that we want to say and we can talk to the world all of us with our music with jimi and janis and joan the prophets the voices of our generation man they'll listen to us and we'll listen to them and everyone in the world will listen and no one in the world can ignore it man it's the voice of our generation it's the loudest voice the world has ever heard it's the voice of peace and the voice of love of the love of the world and mankind and if the flowers could sing to us they'd sound like woodstock. but none of that has happened yet. we're still on the train and still waiting for it to leave and still looking at the old man hoping he won't say anything to us when i realize that that's not what it's all about it's not about us hoping some old guy won't talk to us it's about us talking to the old guy and showing him that we're not just hippy slackers that we do care about everyone and i mean everyone in the world and that we want to talk to everyone and show everyone that not all of us are idiots who are stoned all the time that even though we're stoned all the time we still care what happens to the world we still care about each other and about everyone we've never met and about the billions of other people we've never met and that really truly we have a conscience our whole generation all of us have a conscience and we listen to it and we're the ones who don't want war and right now we're on our way to the biggest concert to the biggest protest to the loudest voice the world has ever heard and that we won't stop saying no never we'll never stop saying no to all the evil and all the death and decay and destruction that we're forced to bring to the world 'cos i know there are guys over there who don't want to be there are guys over there who buy grass and smoke it and listen to hendrix and dylan on those old gramophones they got over there and they don't want to kill anyone man they just want to get stoned and jam with jimi that's all and that's all any of us want to do we don't want to kill or maim just because the guys at the top tell us to why don't the guys at the top kill or maim because they're afraid of their conscience they're afraid that they might actually have one you see but we're not afraid we're not afraid of our conscience because we know we're the good guys. but none of this has happened either. we still haven't said a word and i look at harry and he looks at me and i know we're thinking the same thing but neither of us can really bring ourselves to say anything so we just keep looking at each other and it turns into a kind of staring contest and harry does this weird thing with his eyes where he makes them look like they've exploded like shaking a soda bottle or something and i start laughing and he starts laughing and then we're both giggling out of control giggling at each other on the train in front of this old guy and he just grumbles something and looks out the window and we're both in pain now from so much giggling but we can't stop we really can't stop and we look at each other and it just gets worse but then i breathe and harry breathes and we breathe and we calm down and the train moves at last we're moving heading towards history or our destiny or whatever you want to call it: it's ours. the train is moving quickly now out of the city and into the countryside where the flat plains stretch across the windows toward the horizon leaving nothing to look at but a single line curving around us where the earth meets the sky and where the sun is melting into the sand so far away from us leading us into the night as inevitably as the train moves along its tracks toward its destination with a single mind and a single purpose and i think maybe that's why i like to ride on trains because they know where they're going and i don't know where i'm going all i really have is uncertainty so i ride the trains along their tracks trying to maybe pick up a sense of purpose from them maybe it's comforting to me to know that even if i don't know where i'm going then at least this train does but sometimes i do know where i'm going and sometimes i do have a purpose in mind and sometimes just sometimes i know exactly what it is i want to do and exactly what it is that i'm supposed to do and then most of the time i don't do it because i think that maybe it's not the right thing to do and if it's not the right thing to do then maybe i shouldn't do it but then there are times when it is the right thing to do and i know it's the right thing to do and i just go and i do it almost without thinking and it's those times those times like this time when i feel happier than i've ever felt because i have something to work towards and something to look forward to and something that isn't uncertainty in my life and for once i know where i'm going. all along the train line we pass small towns and villages and those stations that are like in the old west with just a shack and an awning standing by the track and i see them and i wonder how the hell anyone gets to live there why are those tiny places there how are those tiny places there how did they get there in the first place who thought it would be a good idea to set up a town right here in the middle of the desert did they think maybe that these little towns would grow over the years and become huge cities or did they not care about that and just give up traveling across the long open miles of the desert and one day sit in the sand and say here we will build our homes here how do they get things like food and gas and all that stuff that we get all the time in the cities do they have farms or maybe they come by train of course they all come by train it's the only way to get in or out of the town is by train from one of those wooden shack stations sometimes i think it might be nice to live in one of those towns just be nobody and be quiet and stay out of everybody's way for once instead of tripping through a giant city that always feels like it could swallow you whole at any moment like being inside the belly of a giant whale and you can always feel it move about with the tides and the currents and sometimes i think i'd like to disappear into one of those shack stations nobody's heard of and live out the rest of my days in peace and quiet and i say this to harry and he agrees and says that we should live together in a shack station town and have a nice quiet little life with nice quiet little children who don't get in anybody's way and who go to the town school everyday with all the other children in one big classroom and learn about the history of the town and how one day a man sat in the sand and said this is where my home shall be and the children will come home and we'll have dinner every night like a family and we'll read books and watch tv and do nothing absolutely nothing until the very end and then we'll die and our children will have grown and they'll stay in the house and in the shack station town and they'll have their own children who will go to the school and learn about the man who sat in the sand and then they'll grow up and everything will keep going in a nice little circle in our nice little quiet town and maybe that's how these towns stay going if nobody moves to the cities but just stays there and their children stay there and their children stay there and everybody stays because it's nice and it's quiet and every once in a while a train passes by but never stops and everyone there is happy and content with their children and their grandchildren and their school and their shack station and their man sitting in the sand and harry and i lived happily ever after in that quiet little one street shack station town. but none of that has happened. the old man seems to be asleep and i wonder what he dreams about i wonder if maybe he dreams about a world where nobody goes to war and he can just sleep all day without having to be afraid of being bombed or maybe he dreams about living in peace and quiet in one of those little towns with his grandchildren because those little towns never get bombed do they and nobody there probably even knows we have a war and if they do they probably don't care because it doesn't affect them not like it affects us in the cities where the bombs will fall and where they pull people off the streets and drag them away to the jungles and the beaches and tell them to shoot people they've never met and they don't know if they're the bad guys or not people normal ordinary people like steve they pulled him off the streets and put a gun in his hand and told him to march soldier or he'd go to prison and they almost did it to harry too but harry got out of it because he has asthma but he wouldn't get out of it if they pulled him off the streets now because they're desperate you see they're desperate for people to fight their fight that they know is wrong and that we know is wrong and they're desperate to make all of us the bad guys because then maybe it'll make them feel better about themselves if everyone's in it together if the whole country is the bad guys but i know and we all know that we're not the bad guys that old man isn't a bad guy harry isn't a bad guy those people in those towns aren't bad guys we're all just guys just normal people trying to do the right thing we're doing the right thing because we're going to new york and we're going to tell them that we don't want to be the bad guys that we want peace and love and that we won't follow them into the heart of darkness just to help them get their kicks no and this old man is doing the right thing because he doesn't want a war either at least i don't think he does because he's afraid of the bombs and the guns and the tanks and the napalm just like we are but we're not afraid of the bad guys no we're not afraid because we know we have the power you know it's the power it's like jimi says that we can only have peace when the power of love overcomes the love of power and he's right he's absolutely right because we don't want power me or harry or the old man or any of the people in woodstock we want love see we want love and we don't want hate or war or evil or anything bad we just want good and i go to say all this to harry but he's asleep already so i leave him be and i wonder what he's dreaming about and i wonder if maybe he's dreaming about what the old man is dreaming about and what i'm dreaming about right now while i'm awake i wonder if we're all dreaming about the same thing if we're all dreaming about a world with only love like woodstock where nobody wants anything bad to happen and there's no evil and there's no power and there are no tanks or bombs or guns or napalm and there are no children with their skin melted to their skulls and there are no people dragged off the streets and out of their beds at night and told to march soldier and have their legs and arms taken from them and their skin melted to their skulls it's a world where there is no fear and no hate a world where there is only love and peace and quiet a world like those tiny shack station towns where everybody looks out for each other and nobody is bothered by any wars and there are no bad guys only good guys it's a world full of towns full of me and harry and the old man and full of woodstock and flowers and love and peace and harry and i live forever in peace and steve doesn't get dragged off the streets and told to march soldier and maybe he'll get to keep his legs this time and nobody is ever scared and there are no whales to eat us and none of us not one of us is ever in any pain or fear and we're all each and every one of us is a good guy. but none of that has happened yet. i look at harry and his face so peaceful as he sleeps and i think that maybe sometimes the whole world should just sleep because when you're asleep you can't do anything bad and harry wakes then and asks me how long until we get there and i say to him not long now, not long.
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