Butterworth

Runaway Train.

Dragging my backpack along the dusty platform I find a carriage with plenty of empty seats for me to stretch out on and catch some sleep.

I glimpse a corner seat that looks as though there is room for me and for my luggage. My attention focusses on getting there before anyone else. The stinky smell oozing from under a nearby door hints the toilets are close by. I can put up with that smell if I can have space to myself. I don’t feel like making small talk about the weather today with complete strangers.

Shuffling I move past the few passengers lingering while they are making up their minds where they will sit. I plonk my bum on the seat I had claimed in my head as mine.

I see a woman in the window. I am overwhelmed. I feel I know her.

“Do I?”

On closer inspection squinting my eyes I realise it is me.

“Am I going a little bit crazy?”

“Could be” I answer back to myself.

The train jerks and I lunge forward almost landing in the lap of a woman.

“Sorry” I mutter.

She makes no reply.

“Oh well at least I don’t have to chit chat with her.”

I sit. My pack stays on the floor with my feet resting on top.

The windows on one side of the carriage are jammed shut while across on the other side they are stuck open . Soot mixes with dust and hits the closed windows making visibility almost impossible.

“How will I know where I am?”

The open windows gush stifling air into the carriage. Regardless of where I sit the outcome remains the same. The scenery blurs on one side with hot air hitting me in the face from the other.

Rummaging around in my backpack I find my face washer which I soaked in cold water at the last-minute before leaving my hotel room. I must admit I did leave a mess and could have spent a bit of time cleaning up but “what the heck I paid for the room.

I rub my face taking in the coolness. With the last of the dampness, I wipe behind my ears, an old wives tale my mother told me would keep me cool.

Through the grubby glass I see a red glow. Within moments the sun drops as if by magic out of sight. The carriage is suddenly black. The sounds of the night creep onto the outside of the train closing in around the windows, birds and bats competing with crickets and frogs. I wait for some lights to come on so I can pass the time reading my latest Stephen King book. It never happens, no lights flicker. The book lay on the seat beside me, never opened the entire trip.

My feet scrape against the wall, the sound vying with the night noises. I startle myself. Wrapping a small blanket around my shoulders I make myself as comfortable as possible on the hard seats.

With luck I will wake when the train reaches Butterworth. I hear clunking of heavy wheels against the metal rails as I rock back and forth with the rhythm of the train .Sleep comes easily.

Stirred by the faster rhythmic movement of the train I see a slither of light pushing its way between the smudges of dirt on the windows.

“ Have I slept through the night?”

Suddenly it is blazing sunlight flooding the carriage that blinds me. The rays so bright I cannot focus.

I look to see the time. I flip the sleeve of my shirt towards my elbow to check the time on my watch.

My watch has stopped which is strange. This is the first time it has stopped since I bought the thing fifteen years ago from a stall selling secondhand goods back home in Camberwell.

I remember buying the watch like it was yesterday. But it wasn’t yesterday. Yesterday I was on a platform waiting for a train.

I do remember though that moment when the woman placed the watch and my change in my hand, she hesitated for a moment, then leaning in towards me she said

“Keep an eye on time or it will slip away from you like a runaway train.”

I smiled meekly, thanking her and muttering under my breath

“ Silly old fool”

Which had made me the one to be silly because she was neither old nor appearing to be a fool. It would seem I was the fool for not heeding her warning.

I wonder if time has slipped away from me.

“Is it the next morning or have I slept for an even longer time? “

I sit up rigid in the seat. Stretching across to the window I try wiping away enough grime to find out if I recognise the landscape outside.

“Where the hell am I?”

Nothing looks familiar. This I should expect as I have never travelled on a train to Butterworth before yesterday. Was it yesterday?

Still, I anticipate it should not be too different to the earlier part of my journey through the lush southern jungle of Malaysia.

I keep my head still so I can work out what it is I am seeing. Trees, tall buildings maybe a pyramid? “No surely not.”

I push my face against the glass. It is daylight. I can’t make out people just objects moving at a pace so fast I cant determine what they are.

“What’s happening?”

I call out hoping other passengers might hear me, but no one answers.

“Where is everybody? When did the others get off the train? How did they get off?”

“Where has everyone gone?” I hear nothing.

The train has not stopped since I came on board. How did the other passengers alight a moving train? The same questions keep rolling around my head, I am rapid cycling, the questions coming before I get an answer.

I must be near Butterworth. I must be able to get off soon. There should be jungle landscapes outside not pyramids. I should be able to see heads nodding not empty seats.

I fumble for the back pocket of my denim jeans looking for my ticket. It should be there as this is a lazy habit I have of putting tickets and receipts in my pockets.

I can’t find it. I look down for my pack. It is gone. Dropping to my knees I search under the seats hoping it has slid away as the train propelled itself faster. The swerve on the track tips me over. I land on my back feeling foolish. This is foolish. I look up to see the face of the woman whose lap I almost fell into the night before.

“Are you looking for this?” she asks clutching my ticket in her hand.

“ Yes I am. That’s my ticket. Can I have it please?.”

Throwing her head back she laughs

“No, you can’t.”

I am silent. Awkward gaps of silence between her in her fancy clothes with her chin poking holes in the air and me pushing my chin against my chest trying to be invisible.

She waves my ticket about above her head. At one point she scratches the part in her hair letting a sigh of satisfaction ooze from her lips as though she climaxed with my ticket.

“What the hell is going on?” I ask almost amused by the absurdity.

“Well, funny you silly girl, to begin with you are on the wrong train. This ticket says Butterworth. This train is not going anywhere near Butterworth.” She stresses you as if I have a disease she may catch.

An evil laugh spews from her painted mouth.

“ I doubt you will ever understand, time and space my dear or how trains travel.”

Speaking to me as if I am stupid. And right now, I feel stupid.

I don’t like her but what can I do? She has my ticket, and I don’t know where I am. At the moment I can only see and hear the two of us. Damn we really are the only ones who are on this train. Despite my reputation as a wild independent woman, I need this other woman holding my ticket, reeking of stale patchouli oil and smirking with her big red lips..

Probing I ask

“How did I change trains?”

“Who said you did?” she scoffs her dead straight top teeth resting on her bottom lip with gaudy red lipstick smudging a line across her mouth. My teeth feel filthy. I smell my breath. Sour. How many days since I cleaned them?

I look away towards the window. Her face contorts, I can’t look at her.

“I must have changed trains as I boarded a train for Butterworth at Kuala Lumpur, now you say I have the wrong ticket for a train going nowhere, a runaway train with no passengers. Give me a break.”

“What time is it?” I demand ,now confused how I am on this train with her, without my ticket and no idea.

“It is 10 o’clock Wednesday the 10th of July”

“Not possible. Where is my ticket? It says the first of August. I have already lived through the 10th of July weeks ago.!”

“Well, here you go again, and maybe this time you could try being a bit nicer to a few people. You might even like to think about the people you ignored who were hoping for one of your smiles.”

“What? Are you kidding?”

“Only way to stop this train and get off the station is with this ticket and a change in attitude.”

“ You know nothing about me or about my attitude.”

“I know enough to know you put yourself first, you take what you need without thinking about what the person standing beside you needs, such as the seat with enough room to stretch out. You don’t listen, you talk about your best friend as if she is your enemy, what ever happens it is never your fault. In fact, you can be quite awful.”

“Says the woman wearing sticky red lipstick and old patchouli oil. How can you even say any of those things about me? To be honest if we weren’t on this train I would never bother talking to you.”

“I have your ticket. I have the only way you can get off this train. I hold the power in my hands. You choose.”