There were tracks about a mile away from the house I grew up in. We lived pretty far out in the country. Sometimes, after the midnight train went past, you could hear the baby coyotes yipping and howling at the train as it roared off into the night.

I would walk the tracks for hours, falling into a trance watching the ties repeat beneath me. I ceased to see what I was looking at. It was an interesting state of mind. Once I stepped on an empty turtle shell and didn't see it until it had exploded into dust and pieces under my foot.