Why I Visited the Station in Melville

The CN passenger train stops in Melville. A gym for CN workers stands beside the tracks. Passengers stretch their legs. A train both local and through, I figure.
Once I caught the train in Regina bound for Ottawa and, a week later, two years in Papua New Guinea. It was more like a pod: close at hand was anything I'd need--I'd go down to the dining car, that's all. I did then pretty much what I'm doing right now, writing stuff down.
Dad had cried in Calgary when we said good-bye, just the second time I'd seen him like that. I'd already taken too long to establish myself, was how he might have seen it.
I didn't think of any of that at the station in Melville. I saw those passengers stretching their legs, and the run-down condition of the original stationhouse, and (100 years ago) the pastors arriving to turn the sod for the Luther Academy.
From the station out--trajectories repeated thousands of times for newcomers to the southern prairie, once the tracks got there.