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The Train

193 views 7 replies 7 participants last post by  orwen2000 
#1 ·
Author's Preface: This short story dates back about five years, but it's my favorite of what I've written so I'll share it here. Perfectionist that I am, reviewing it for the purpose of posting it here causes me to make some minor improvements, thus the posting serves its purpose to me.

You sit quietly at the station, eyes open, watching nothing. There's nothing around you to see or do. Your mind is blank.

Out of the corner of your eye comes a small movement which brings you into awareness. The movement grows and coalesces into a train, speeding through the tunnel toward you. It seems to have come from nowhere and approaches at an extraordinary speed, but with an unnatural suddenness it slows and screeches to a halt at the station where you sit. It rests only a few meters from you. You inspect it, absorbing the experience as well as you can. You note the bulk of the long train, the smoothness of its outer surface, and the way it appears to hover effortlessly over the tracks. The door stands open for you, and you see someone inside motioning for you to come.

Slowly and carefully, you stand. You look at the ground for a moment to check your footing, glance back at the emptiness behind you, then step forward into the train. You are the only person boarding. As you climb aboard, an old woman shuffles by you on her way out.

A young woman who appears to carry some authority stares at you as you come aboard. "Money, money!" she urges you. "Pay money here." Her eyes dart about, inspecting every part of you as you deposit your money in the slot.

Moving onward, you take a seat next to an old man. For a few minutes the two of you sit quietly, then he breaks the silence.

"You're new here, aren't you?" the man asks. "You just got on at the last stop?"

"Yes," you reply, disinterested. Your attention is focused on the shapes and colors you see out the window.

"You young folk are always looking outward, always waiting for something. I've been here for so long that I can hardly imagine being anywhere else, but I'm getting off at the next stop. Before I leave, let me give you a piece of advice: don't expect any station to be any different than any other. What you see out the window may look interesting, but it's nothing, the only reality is here inside the train."

"Where is the train going," you ask, "if the train is the only reality? If you're going somewhere, that means there's something other than where you are."

He shakes his head as if he's answered your question many times before. "Right now it may seem to you as though the train is moving towards something of great importance which you have to reach," the man suggests, leaning forward for emphasis. "It isn't. No matter how long you wait, every stop will be exactly the same in the end."

You shift uncomfortably in your seat. He glances at his watch and checks the train schedule, then turns back as if to speak to you again. He says nothing.

The train screeches to a halt, and the old man stands up and departs. As the train begins to move again, you look back towards the station. You cannot see anyone around it. The old man is gone.

Leaning back in your seat by the window, you spend a long stretch of time looking out at the colorful scenery. You gaze curiously at the shapes and patterns, vibrant yet unreal. At times you feel as though there is no window, as though you're a part of the scenery yourself. You reach out slowly to see if perhaps the window is gone, but your hand stops at the cold glass and you're reminded of the invisible barrier between yourself and the distant world you watch.

Each time the train stops at a station, the force of the deceleration reminds that you are confined within it. Often you hear a distant voice: "Arrivals and departures! Arrivals and departures!" You wait eagerly for the train to begin moving again, and when it does you resume watching the scenery pass by.

You see a woman walking towards you, and you turn your attention away from the window, toward her. Her face seems familiar.

"I'm the engineer, conductor, and person of general importance on this train," she declares. "And you are? Person. Hello, person."

You become nervous. "Who's in charge of the train right now, then?"

She looks at you curiously. "The train goes. It doesn't need me. The train goes right now. I just help it when I feel like it. Right now, it can do anything it wants."

Your blood pressure jumps as you consider the person in charge of your trip. "At least it stays on the rail," you reassure yourself.

"Rail. Rail!" she exclaims. "What is there on a rail? Boring!"

You turn your head away for a moment to look out the window, and when you turn back the woman is gone. A few moments later the train lurches to a halt, throwing you against the back of the seat in front of you. You see the woman stepping down off of the train onto the earth beside the tracks. You walk over, open a large window near her location and lean out in order to try to see what she is doing.

"Why are you kneeling next to the train?" You shout the question at her, disturbed that your trip is being delayed. "Why are we sitting here not moving?"

"Train shouldn't need track. Everything exciting is off the track. Now we'll go off track, too." She grunts several times as she attempts to lift the train. "Too heavy. Why?!"

After exhausting every attempt to push the train off of its tracks, she gets back aboard and the train begins to move again. Satisfied, you go back to looking out the window at the distant ever-changing landscape. You lose track of time, and of all the scenery which flows by.

At each stop you see newcomers climb aboard, and you feel sorry for them when you see their youthful excitement. You know they will be disappointed. You know that the train doesn't go anywhere new and different, that every stop looks the same.

A young man sits down next to you. "What's wrong with that woman?" he asks you.

"I don't know," you explain. "She's strange and unpredictable, but you get used to it after a while. Everything blurs together, odd events are reconciled into a wider experience."

Reflecting on your experiences, you decide that the time has come to get off at the next stop. You know you have nothing left to do on the train. You know you must eventually get off, that it won't last forever. You know it doesn't matter where you get off, as every stop will be identical to every other.

You feel the train slowing, and look out the window toward the station as it grows nearer. The station looks like any other, like the one where you originally got on.

The train has stopped. You rise from your seat, walk to the door, and after a moment's hesitation step down off of the train onto the earth. As the soles of your shoes contact the soft earth, a sense of calm overwhelms you. The noise of the train is gone, replaced by the quiet of the emptiness which surrounds you. The complex distractions of the views you once saw out the window have vanished, yielding to a colorless canvas. You glance back, but the train is gone forever. Your mind empties as you walk away. You move onward, eyes open, watching nothing.

Author's Notes: I just love a second person narrative. ;) The story, anyhow, originated one morning on the bus as I was going to college. There was an evidently insane woman on the bus (not actually driving it, fortunately, unlike the story) who caught my imagination with such things as her "And you are? Person. Hello, person." and "Arrivals and departures!" declarations at each stop. I always have trouble coming up with an interesting character, so since life had been so kind as to give me one I wrote a story around her.
 
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#7 ·
#8 ·
I liked it a lot. It's as if you conjured a batch of feelings from right inside my head and given them words. :)

Have you seen the movie Dead Man? This story reminded me of the opening scene of the movie, in the train. Although your story is very different and even more focused than that movie.
 
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