Train? Train? Why no one rides a train these days. They are outdated, a thing of the past. Sure; they still exist but more as tourist attractions then actual means to a destination. What of the speeding bullet trains in Japan, you say? Why those are barely trains, great-descendants of the real thing. No, what makes a train is the lazy swaying and occasional soot. An early alternative to going it on foot. Some complained in that day of the noise and space and inconvenience and pollution. If only they could have traveled to today and see what we have made. They would see that their revolutionary acts are now little more than history book facts. A memorized invention immortalized in the Industrial Revolution. It is deemed now that to ride on a Grandfather Train is to go back to a time where life was simple and people considerate. But, I wonder, would the people we met there think the same of their era as we have preserved it?

Lynette could not take her eyes off that engagement ring with the yellow diamond in the middle. She and her husband got married so fast he didn't have a chance to think let alone buy her an engagement ring. So every time she went to her local mall she stopped by the jewelry store to take a look at that ring. The ring was displayed in a glass case with a blue satin cloth draped underneath it. The blue cloth made the yellow diamond beam from across the room.
The ring was made out of platinum with three quarter carat white diamonds displayed on each side. The center of the ring was a circle with more one eight carat diamonds in the outer ring and the yellow four carat diamond displayed prominently in the center. Lynette often bought her husband to see the ring when they dined in a restaurant at the mall.
Today is Saturday October 27th Lynette's 5th wedding anniversary and it is raining terribly hard outside. Lynette's husband Harold turned on the evening news and heard that a storm was brewing and there would be heavy showers and possibly a thunder storm later that night. Since Lynette had taken the train to work Harold chose prepare a surprise. He lit the fireplace to warm the house, set the dinner table and prepared a candle lit dinner. In the center of the table Harold placed a small black box with a satin cloth draped underneath it.
At approximately 6:30pm Lynette made it home, soak and wet from the hard rains. They lived on the south side of Chicago. Their home can be classified as brownstone. Brownstone's have small 500 square foot grassy areas in the front of the house and practically no backyard in the back of the house, large living rooms with hardwood floors throughout.
As Lynette entered the home she sat down on the bench located in the foyer near the front door. As she sat her tired body down she took off her scarf, boots and rain coat. She grabbed the mail from the mail box and sat down in the living room to unwind from the long trip home. Harold enters the room, kisses her forehead, sits down and places her feet in his lap and begins to massage them, he notice they are cold as ice.
"How was your day?" said Harold.
"Long and interesting." says, Lynette.
"I had a long day in court and it looks like the jury needs an additional day to deliberate on the case." said Lynette.
To change the subject to something more positive Harold says, "I've got dinner cooked are you hungry?"
"Sure what's cooking?" responds Lynette.
"Lamb with potatoes and veggies." says Harold.
"Wow you sure went through a lot of trouble to cook a meal in the middle of the week." says Lynette.
Its all because you're worth it. Lynette enters the dining room and the first thing she sees in the black case displayed on top of the blue satin cloth and she begins to cry.

I fiddled with it as I leaned over the train table, watching the Blue Comet, our finest engine, make its rounds. My husband had engendered in our boys an adoration of locomotives. And despite my early lack of interest, I found myself caught up in the well-being of our little railroad as if they were living things, something like pets that went in circles, puffed smoke when they were healthy, and then went neatly into their boxes when you needed them to. At the moment, I wasn’t messing with track or landscaping or even the cars. My ring finger was itching, so I pulled off my gold and diamond array and gave that space between knuckle and first joint a good scratching.

Even with the irritation, I could see my flesh had some how become emaciated, shrunk down to accommodate the chunkiness of this piece of jewelry that reminded my daily of my promise to love, be true and bear with. Lying there by the mini railway station, how it sparkled in the sunlight pouring in from the sliding glass doors. As I admired it, all the love symbolism of the ages—the eternal quality of the circle, the pure beauty and value of gold, the enduring strength of diamonds—paled beside a single thought.

I could get a boatload for that ring.

As the Blue Comet made another round, I pushed the lever and watched it pick up speed, with the coal tender, seven box cars and the caboose flying along behind. I wondered how fast it would go before something got stuck, came loose or derailed.

I should drop by that little jeweler on the way to the grocery store.

The engine was now flying at its maximum when a boom jolted me from my musings to the glass door where I saw rain pelting down, hard and serious. I closed a nearby window and turned back to the table in time to see the whole train hit a curve that knocked it flat on its side. Kind of pathetic. I turned off the whole works, righted each car and let them all be, some on the track, some off.

And me off to the land of carats and loupes.

“You might want to think about this,” he told me. “He” was the longtime owner of the shop, known for integrity in a business that sometimes attracted people with slipshod ethics.

“For the sake of your children, you might want to hold on to this,” he went on. He looked at me for a moment, “or consider re-setting in into something more suitable for you.”

I hadn’t considered anything but money up to this point. “I want to do this,” I said, mostly to myself.

“I’m closing up the shop right now. Would you like to come back tomorrow? We’re open 10 to 5.”

“I’ll do that. Thanks.”

He smiled very gently like he knew I wouldn’t and locked the door as I stepped out into the storm.

Puff . . . the smoke ring rose effortlessly from the toy train circling the table. Puff . . . another blue-gray ring drifted upward, as the first ring began to fall apart like a dissipating storm over the gulf viewed from space. Puff . . . each new smoky ring hovered in place over the tiny tracks as the train spun its wheels to escape its own ghostly emanations. Puff . . . now the train completed a circuit, lapping the barely visible clouds puffed above the tabletop. The latest puff seemed briefly more distinct than the first, then began blending, amorphous. The ring of track sat solidly under the whizzing engine, a clockwork universe under a milky way of overlapping smoky blue rings and former, paler rings. The wooden table sat solidly under the tracks buzzing slightly with the train’s electricity, and storm-gray-blue smoke wafted above. And the train circled endlessly under watchful eyes.
Her blue eyes impatiently scanned the timetable again. His train was late, perhaps delayed because of the coming storm. How long had she delayed the inevitable storm? Why would he take the train anyway? He could work on the train, he said, he could call if there were any delays, he said, he could get there in the same time, he said, if you include the airport security time, he said, and the cab time, he said, and besides, he said, he liked trains, ever since he was a kid. Click-clack, over the tracks went the wheels of the train, numbing the annoyance, white-noising the muffled conversations. No more puffs. She had tired of endless rings, and ringless ends. She waited, stormy-eyed, clouds gathering. Her storm would burst over him in electric blue lightning, would knock him to the canvas like a stuntman in a boxing movie, would leave his ears ringing, his eyes searching for reality in the smoky atmosphere above the ring. Then she would be gone.
The toy train traced its unchanging ring around the tabletop, puffing a reminiscent haze above it; his train chugged smokelessly toward blue changes.