The policeman's belly sticks out under his uniform, the man well fed, his teeth small ice chips. - Move it or I'll get you for loitering. Baxter stuffs his needle and thread in his pocket and starts walking. Loitering! Why would he want to loiter in a train station if he didn't have to? He had his fill of locomotives' hissing and screams long ago, had tired of their whistly spurts and steam farting the first day he started. The railyard smell always jerks his stomach, sometimes telling him he still hasn't eaten enough and his stomach is too soft. It reminds him of his mother accusing him of too much daydreaming, as though daydreaming was a crime because it sometimes made him late for school. Yes, perhaps he daydreamed too much, talked to stray dogs and geckos, trying to make them his friends, dithered over his fish at breakfast, drew pictures of the stars at bedtime.

— The Sleeping Car Porter by Suzette Mayr (Page 32)