A Stop Before Starting

The only time I’ve been to Switzerland was early one spring on a train through the mountains. There was a lake—I guess it was Lucerne? Above me cliff tops ridged with snow fanned out so that where I stood at the edge of the platform light bathed the empty siding all around with a diffused opalescence off the water. Behind the station must have been a town, spires of churches, municipal arcades, and coffee squelching in the fogged caf és. I never saw the place, though I remember thinking this is Switzerland and took a mind-shot of the pines, breathing in the cold as the porter whistled at us to reboard.