1927

When I first came too, I lay bundled uncomfortably on a strange flat bed in the dark. I tried opening my eyes, but warped apparitions of strangers hanging from train windows and waving at me with long distorted arms melted into my brain like thick wax stains on brown paper bags. If it wasn’t for the unnerving squeal of iron wheels on steel tracks, I’m not sure how long I would’ve been out for. The screech drove a hole deep into my head and it took me about four seconds to fully awaken. I sat up too quickly in the unlit room and bumped my head on the luggage rack above me. My legs cramp and it feels like my calf tendons twisted into a knot. A rhythmic grinding and chugging emerges from the ringing echo in my head and settles into the melodious clickety-clack of a steam engine making its way hastily on its tracks. I rub my calves simultaneously and crunch my toes back and forth inside my boots to relieve the tension as my eyes adjust to obscurity. I’m alone and for all intents and purposes, I’m not supposed to be here. I suss out the window. It’s black as coal except for the infinite stars splattered across the heavens and I have no idea where in the world I’m heading. Eyeballing the room, I see nothing except scattered remnants of starlight reflected on the brass and wooden fittings. I hear nothing but the vulgar muffled mechanisms moving this beast forward.

Are all the other passengers asleep?

The silence draws me out and pulls me into its vacuum. Flimsy wooden doors slide open onto a snug corridor with dimly lit oil lamps hanging from the walls. Dark green velvety curtains frame and soften the square windows that stand between me and the strange hostile land that gapes at me from outside! I make my way to the front of the train and peek into one empty cabin after another, as I swallow this queasy feeling of dread.

Moving on, I jump over the couplings and through the doors of one carriage to the next, finally bursting into the empty dining room with its mahogany chairs and deep oriental rugs. Stale tobacco and remnants of varnish haunt me where darling couples should be pouring their hearts out at candlelit dinners and distinguished gentlemen drunk on whisky, discuss intrepid expeditions in unconquered land.

I feel compressed by the eerie quiet lull and like I’m being stalked by memories in the shadows. I decide to keep going when I see a very familiar, leather bound notebook, thrown carelessly on the floor with loose pieces of parchment spilling out from its sleeve. Bending over and with great care, like one might do if picking up a gravely wounded bird, I swoop up the book… my book… and page through the notes made by me with very little comprehension of why this is here. It's just another fragmented piece of this psychedelic nightmare. I hadn’t seen this thing in years! Random words like ‘alchemy’, ‘converter’ and ‘new science’ hit me with such dreamlike recollection, that it felt just out of my grasp.

A little newspaper clipping drifted out from between the pages. It fluttered around for a few seconds, like an autumn leaf caught in a breeze, and I couldn’t help skimming over it before it settled on my boot.

It was definitely me in the photo in the article. It was quite a few years old, I was barely even 12... “A child prodigy” came at me from the litany of words, and... “latest invention sparks rumors' of war” hit me so hard it felt like I'd been punched in the gut, and it weakened my squat. I leaned back and straightened my legs from under me, sprawling out on the cold floor in disbelief, as the heavy steam engine thrust forward with great momentum. Now, tit bits of the last 2 years began emerging in my mind, about some of my designs. I remember standing on a stage next to someone giving a presentation of my most highly coveted creations, where men with round spectacles and foreign accents watched me like vultures and drooled over me like predators. I remember now feeling like I wanted to run away that particular day. They stole all the pleasure of creating from me, when they turned my childhood passion into lucrative things that men would kill for!

And then I remembered…

…Lying gagged on a steel gurney… trying to scream… to call for help, but nothing came out. My arms and legs strapped down too tightly that it made my hands and feet numb. I couldn’t move and was blinded by a vexatious bright white light right at my face. Beyond the darkened room and black abstract imprints burnt into my retina, the cabal hid behind hair caps and surgical face masks and wore long white coats so I wouldn't be able to identify them as they injected me with ketamine!

I paged through my old journal quickly and found something else… my “SUPER COAL” as I childishly named it (drawn with ink and neatly labelled)... a tightly compressed biomass of torrefied fossil fuels that would take energy consumption to a whole new level. It was easy to manufacture and more powerful than any other biofuel or coal currently used. The idea is to have it so intensely compressed into little pellets no bigger than a thumb, that it would generate triple the heat of average coal and burn five times longer. I called it ‘renewable energy’ and many investors were interested in financing the research. Of course, part of my invention included a high pressure converter that would produce this coal and this would be costly.

While this design certainly piqued interest, it was my other prototype that sent politicians looney... ‘DRAGON GREENS’... my super charged super coal, as it was scrawled out in pencil complete with calculations and symbols jotted in columns to break it down. This was the cat's meow so to speak... Uranium... At intense temperatures, it produces immense energy but is highly unstable, so it goes without saying that at this point it's nothing more than a grand delusion in the mind of a gifted young student.

And with that thought came another from a different part of my semi conscious mind… that one evening, not so long ago, after an intense conversation with Professor Bourdon, I was followed. We were in his class room at Uni discussing the stabilization of isotopes in Uranium. It got pretty heated and my brain was going a hundred miles an hour, but eventually he took off his glasses, rubbed his wrinkly red eyes and with a great yawn he shooed me off home. I knew I could be deeply intense when over excited, so apologetically, I picked up on the cue and headed off. It was a lovely evening that night. The moon was bright yellow and bursting in the sky, casting intense shadows that played chilling mind games with me. I was processing what the Professor was alluding to, when someone ran up and grabbed me from behind. I jumped out of my skin and my heart exploded and then sank into my stomach. It took me a second before opening my mouth to scream, but my cry was stopped by a chlorophyll soaked rag slapped over my face.

It dawned on me at that precise moment that this train had been travelling an awful long time since I had woken up and I had no idea how long I had been passed out before that. I gathered my precious designs and stuffed them in my back pocket. It wasn’t a nice feeling being so separated from that reality back at home. A fondness for my Professor washed through me and a well of nostalgia made me nauseous. Part of me felt that I knew how this was going to end and that didn’t fill me with much enthusiasm, but I got up and persuaded myself to ankle on... regretting every darn idea in that stupid book!

Finally, barging through the last door onto the ass end of the heartless tender which proudly lugged its great wealth of coal and water, I jumped across to a little ledge and grabbed hold of this mighty beast's handles, as it rattled and bounced along its trajectory. This bastard cares nothing for me and does its best to throw me off its back. The ground under me moves too fast and I regret looking at it, all thorny and violent. It’s a fast lane to hell and it’s trying to suck me into its infernal void, before I have a chance to redeem myself. I lose my balance and my foot slips and Hades pulls me down, but I hold on for dear life and hug the iron demon, wishing I was anywhere in the world but here.

Frustrated and exhausted, I secure myself and edge my way to the front engine. I can feel myself shivering miserably. I haul myself across the couplings and peer into the empty cab and climb around and over it, and flop down inside. Relieved and terrified, I pray and beg God to have mercy on me and ask what I did to deserve this.

I am alone and insignificant. My inconsequence is magnified by the vast heavens above as the galaxies intertwine, spraying space dust into the atmosphere. Out here, even on this moving thing, I am humbled by the expanse of this cosmic light and in awe of creation. I also realize that I’m pretty screwed and bound for destruction, so I entertain notions of self-pity, by cursing the God I just prayed to, and blubber to myself with tear streaked cheeks.

So… to say that it took me by surprise, was an understatement, when I saw Dragon Greens scattered on the ground near the Firebox. And they were EXACTLY as I had imagined them, perhaps even more glorious, but only ever in my dreams! How could this be? They were only ever theoretical! Made real only by markings in pen and ink, but WAY too dangerous to actually materialize. Yet, here they were, littered on the floor and right at my feet, looking up at me, their mother, with such love and such longing and oh… so beautiful and so mesmerizing, with their glowing warmth pulsating like tiny green veins and their little torrefied eyes staring up at me for love and attention.

I instinctively scoop them up and rub them with the gentleness of a newborn as I hold them close. Who could ever have imagined they would yield such magnificence and fill me with such pride and joy! I take on a new found affection for this beautiful steam engine and touch it apologetically. I notice the Firebox is significantly larger than normal and filled to the brim with my stunning little babies. The green glow emanating from inside intensifies as the heat increases, and the flames snatch at anything they can grab at outside the stove.

I was so enamored with my little conceptions that I hadn't realized just how loud and how warm it was, but I felt it now and my cheeks burnt from the heat. I touched them, hoping to cool them down a bit with my hands and I caught sight of the greenish black smoke billowing out from the smokestack, which looked strangely animate and menacing and I am transfixed by the ghoulish creatures gliding in the thick otherworldly smog. And I feel repulsive.

What have I done?

Now I know why we are here?

To be destroyed!

And forgotten...