Passing Lights

The light was astonishing. He gasped, and screwed his eyes against the brilliance of it, the shock of it. He began to panic, flailing limply, crying out, desperately floundering, and failing, to take control of himself. A woman’s voice, bright and clear like colours under a mid day sun, but gentle, soothing, lulling…the train rocked and he drifted back into sleep.

Again he woke, and again, the panic took hold. He cried out, knowing he was alone, but again, the woman spoke to him, kind words he could not make out. Food was held to his lips but his mind was cloudy and the urge to sleep was stronger than the urge to eat.

Again, he woke. The passage of time was irrelevant to him, but perhaps something had shifted. In his belly, a gnawing drove a sense of need now more powerful than anything else. He opened his eyes, but couldn’t focus, couldn’t lift his head. Again, he cried out, fearful he might now be alone. An attendant was there. Had they been there all along? He felt his body pushed and pulled, propped in readiness, and then – ah, bliss – warm, sweet nectar was put to his lips. Easy to swallow, it flowed down his throat as he gulped. But sleep stole upon him before he was finished and again, unconsciousness took him. The train rattled on.

In the early days, he did not notice the speed, the stations whizzing by, the bumps and lurches of the track. He slept, and when he woke, he took the sticky, sweet drink, and each time, as his belly filled, he succumbed again. Often, he would wake up vomiting, or crunched in pain. Attendants would clean him, redress him, offer him again the sweetness, and he would want it, desperately. But his tolerance grew and increasingly, he stayed awake a little longer. He began to know the voices, who was gentle, who was rougher, who was quickest to recognise, no, anticipate, what he might need. And perhaps there was something in that warm, sweet drink, because he began to gain strength. His vision began to clear. Slowly, very, very slowly, he began to feel curious. Yet he still did not notice those rhythmic, clattering tracks, or wonder how he had got there.

Station after station passed. In time he was strong enough to sit and to watch the undulating landsape, but his attention was more focused on building up strength. When he was feeling strong enough, different food was brought out, and he had not realised how hungry he was. As he was given less and less of the sweetness, he slept less, vomited less, grew more aware. The fog that had shrouded his mind did not vanish, but it thinned. He started to pick up odd words of the language, and, when he started to feel more confident, he started to use a little too. He worked hard, they all did, to help him gain strength. As they pulled through a sunny, bunting draped station with ladies laughing and cheering together on the platform, he took three steps alone before grabbing for the bed, finding only air, and falling, painfully. But he persisted. Three steps became ten, and ten quickly became fifty, one hundred, three hundred, back and forth, in cramped circles. A definite, remarkable, improvement.

His curiosity began to grow. He began to ask questions, with what of the language he had, though he could not always understand the answers. Sometimes, he was pretty sure he knew exactly what the answer was, but still, it didn’t quite make sense. He would try again, asking in a different way, but rarely could he break the deadlock. The train began to speed up, but still he didn’t notice. He glimpsed it, the speed, for the first time, when they all agreed he was strong enough to go to see Miss Phelps. For some reason, that old fear which had hardly troubled him for some time now, echoed around his chest and stomach as the attendants who had nursed him walked with him to the white painted door at the end of the carriage. The woman, who’s voice had soothed him so often, sounded far from soothing as she pulled open the door. On the other side, Miss Phelp pulled hers, also, and between the two open doors, he could see for a moment the ground rushing so fast he could make nothing out, and he wondered, just for one beat of his racing heart, where he was going. And then he was across, and the doors were shut behind him.

Miss Phelps gave him his first mission. Be ready. Where, it appeared, seemed not to be the question as much as how to be ready when he got there. A preparatory training regime, mental, physical, emotional, had clearly been prepared for him long before he boarded. There were others, too, and at first they laughed at their common experiences, shared their frustrations and vied for position like chimpanzees in a zoo. But when the train gained speed this time, people started to notice. They started to talk amongst themselves about how they got here, where they were going….and for the first time, he realised he hadn’t bought a ticket.

He prepared and practiced his stories. The ticket was in his bag, elsewhere. The ticket dropped down the toilet, the ticket had been ruined in the rain. Fortunately no conductor came and his worries were fruitless. Never the less, he was anxious to go on looking in the next carriage in case the conductor lurked. But his friends began to slip through the door, and when no one came back, he followed, aware he could be walking into danger. Again, the floor rushed beneath him, and he wondered how much faster this train could go.

Carriage C was beautiful. Though food wrappers littered the tables, the wide picture windows let the light flood in, illuminating dozens of chatting, smiling, laughing passengers. He spotted a few of the people he had met in Carriage B, in small groups, or sitting in empty seats next to strangers, and he took a seat next to a girl who met his eye as he glanced around the carriage. They talked about their training. Hers had been different to his, though there had been many similarities. Perhaps their destinations would not be the same. He hoped they would be though. They spoke for a long time as the train ran slow through several unmanned platforms, bedecked with hanging baskets and overflowing planters, and when she said she needed to find her compartment and settle in, he went with her. The lay down together in the same bed, not bothering to pull down the top bunk, and they stayed there together whilst the train whispered through darkened stations with roads that disappeared into blackness beyond. It was only when the dawn came, and the train began to speed up again, that they moved to push the bunk back into a bench seat and sit side by side watching the landscape pass, pointing occasionally, to places they perhaps might like to stop one day.

He began to think more about stopping. The train was moving faster, and faster, and a steward had come down the carriages, telling them all what to do to keep the train running. He couldn’t see the stations pass now, from his position in a small booth, juggling wires into sockets, swapping them, rerouting them, as each heated up and started to smoke. It consumed him, at the same time as it bored him, and at night, in the compartment, he worried the nightwatch would fail and the train would burn, and he would lie awake and watch the passing lights.

Fatigue set in, and, to his relief and his shame, as the train hurtled, a bullet blur through across the land, he was dismissed. He only worried a little, after that. But he still watched the lights pass. Then, one night, he awoke sharply to the hiss and creak of sudden stillness. And the click of the compartment door. He hurried to follow her down the panelled corridors, one after another, to the back of the train, he called her, summoned her back, but she kept moving, too far ahead already though she had only had a small start. Finally, they reached the final carriage, and as he entered, he watched her open the rear door he had wondered so many times if he could just step out of, and she stepped out of it. Didn’t even look back. He ran, but it was too late, the door was shut, and locked too, though that didn’t seem right. He saw her back, her nightdress, her hair, her shoeless feet, for one moment more, and then she was gone in the dark.

He had known, really, that their destinations would be different. He had thought there might be a work around, a bargain they could strike. There hadn’t even been the opportunity. Who would he speak to anyway?

Afterwards, the train never regained speed, not while he was on board. The stop, that first stop, had cost it momentum, and the engine pulled it sluggishly through empty stark grey station after empty stark grey station. And he could not get used to the motion, the speed had seemed to keep things stable, now he stumbled and preferred to stay seated. Assistants again came and fed him smooth, easy food. Again, they spoke kindly to him, and again, he was lulled to sleep, drifting in and out, and increasingly waking and crying out, alone in the hazy dark. Even so, when he again heard that grind and hiss, and felt the motion slow, slow, and cease, he found he wasn’t sure. He had never even bought a ticket, how would they know this was his stop?

It was a long walk, alone, to the back of the train. But the door was open and the conductor he had evaded for so long stood before it. The conductor held out her hand, and he patted his pockets, feeling, at last, the ticket that had always been there. The conductor scanned it, and nodded. All was in order. He stepped off the train.