On a train --- 湊線に乗って

1:16 p.m.
The doors closed. The diesel engine kicked in. The train shuddered once and started to move at last, slowly, carefully gaining speed and trundled out of the platform. Having been through boring private houses, now the one-box local train was running in this vast rice field. My heart was liberated. A ripple occurred in one place and then rapidly spread on the ocean of supple and slender green grasses, followed by another, then another... never-ending tag.
The train stopped at a tiny station in the middle of nowhere. "Nakane" a signboard read. A few passengers, a camera hanging from their shoulder, got off. They were the ones we call "Tetsu" or railway maniacs. They were going to take photos of the local train leaving the station, going farther and farther until it disappeared in the field. There was something heart-warming in their serious looks when they walked silently toward places they consider the best.
With a mild lurch, the train started to head for the beach, leaving behind it the train spotters. All their faces, half covered with their camera, chased it as it moved.
Now the rice field turned to a potato field in deeper green. Clickety-clack, clickety-clack. It was running. Suddenly, for a moment, I felt contented. Everything seemed right. The near-bankrupt train, the farmers without successors, my aging mom, my life, this world...