The Circus Train

The darkness loomed outside the windows as the circus train sped past fields lost to the blur of time. The train lurched and chugged like a herd of walloping rhinos. Latched behind the engine car, the one car with red velvet seats carried a sleeping man sporting a stiff brown suit, spectacles tilted sideways on his face and a slumped posture. The sleeping man mumbled and twitched in sync with the train car’s rumble. And only to the sound of a tiger’s roar in the next train car did he awaken.

He propped himself up poignantly, fixing his spectacles and looking out the window to darkness then peering down to his seat. There lay a piece of paper that said Train route: Gouverneur, New York to Montreal, Canada - August 1889.

Through the back door of the car, Elmor barged in, grease and grit crusted into the lines of his thin face and denim overalls.

“Sir, Sir! I’m sorry to bother you. I’m here to update you, Sir. It’s the train.”

The sleeping man, now standing at the edge of his seat, stared at Elmor, fixating on his one overall strap that lackadaisically hung unhitched.

The glaze in the now awakened man’s eyes was fierce. An unknowing glaze that spooked Elmor. He was used to the man’s direct and often harsh tones and demeanor, but this was different.

“Sir, are you alright?”

The now awakened man instinctively searched his pockets and pulled out a handkerchief from the breast of his coat, smearing the beads of sweat that had matriculated on his forehead at the edge of his curly hair.

“I don’t know. I don’t know where I am,” he said as the opaqueness of his blue eyes widened in an abyss of hollow humility.

“Sir, you’re on your train. We’re heading to Montreal.”

“My train?”

“Yes, Sir. Your train. But, Sir, that is why I’ve come to interrupt you. Your train. We have a problem. The door to the engine car cab is jammed shut, and Boneyard is stuck in there. He is slumped over and isn't responding to our knocks on the glass. We've been pounding and pounding. The glass in the windows is so thick. Chaplin tried to break the glass, but even he isn’t strong enough. Sir, the train is a runaway. We have no way to stop it.”

The man was still and staring at Elmor, the opaqueness of his eyes now burrowing into Elmor’s with deeper confusion.

“What is in the other train cars?” the man asked.

“Sir, this is your train. You know. You must know what’s in the cars. In all sixty of them. Are you alright, Sir?”

“I don’t know, as I said.”

There was a pause, one filled with both concern and delirium meeting in the middle of the captivity of consciousness.

“The coal. How much coal is left? The train. It will stop on its own when the coal runs out,” said the man, his reason clinging to breathless air.

“Yes, that is true. But …”

“But. There is no but. If you say this is my train, then it will stop on its own.”

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Maddie sat against the dark train car, holding her porcelain doll close to her chest, occasionally futzing with the frills of its blue dress. This soothed her. She had become accustomed to the nighttime train rides, her owl eyes adjusting to the dark after so many nights like this. She’d tuck herself into her corner of the train car, sweeping with her hands the scattered hay and making a nest for herself. First, she’d always make nests for the two baby elephants, swirling the hay clockwise until it spiraled and formed a bowl in the middle. She called that the sleep spot. Two baby elephants meant two nests, and they had to be just so. Just like hers.

“Here’s your sleep spot, little ones, “ she’d say when the nests were ready each evening. They let her touch their flapping ears, and with gentle grace she’d guide them to their nests, their clicks and whines and head nods suggesting a medley of gratitude and love.

She minded the two mothers well enough, and they minded her. In the eyes of the great beasts, Maddie knew they trusted her. They’d sway side to side on their side of the train car, and she’d stand on her side and sway with them, feet steady, both arms extended as if she had a trunk like them, and she’d sway to the rhythm of their motherhood.

This particular evening, Maddie tucked herself into her nest, only after the babies were tucked into theirs. She closed her eyes and remembered the blue dress her mother always wore as she caressed the one on her doll. She wondered when she’d next see her, if ever again. The loneliness and longing she felt was diluted by her connection to the elephants. She stared at the elephants in the darkness.

As the train sped on through the night, the moonlight and beams from the occasional street lights peeked through the one sliver of window cut into the car’s metal. The light always illuminated the elephants’ eyes. They blinked sleepily, but she didn’t think they ever actually slept. She thought she could see the same loneliness and longing in the elephant’s eyes, pain so deep that they never let their eyes completely rest. Alert. Ready. Always waiting, wondering and anticipating. She knew they missed their heritage, their land and the rest of their herd left behind long ago. And their freedom. She missed hers too.

As Maddie started to doze, she was awakened by a deafening screech reminiscent of a dragon’s cry caught beneath the train. The train car lurched forward, catapulting her small frail body against one of the mothers who’d collapsed to the car’s floor. In the momentum of the upheaval, the train car then flipped upward, spinning twice before landing upright and sideways, landing Maddie and the four elephants in a heap of fate in Maddie’s corner of the train car.

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The silence of night was fractured by the demonic harmony of metal on metal and the feral cries of species from all over the globe. The bloody incision of death on life cracked the landscape, the smell of smoke blazed and suffocated, and the lines of train track were bent, no longer obvious, no longer available to endorse the entertainment of freedom stolen and struck down.

“Sir, are you alright?” Elmor asked the man as they departed the wreck unscathed.

The man glanced at his legend that lay before him, scattered cars, animals roaming and moaning, his people frantically scouring the scene for both life and death. Hundreds of people, from all sides of the world it seemed, were running, riding bicycles or driving their cars, lured by the principle of agency and altruism. Some hovered in the outskirts of the wreck, and some lunged into the wreck, ravenously finding and assisting the animals and people trapped within the trap.

Saviors, the man thought.

“Sir. Mr. Barnum. Sir, are you alright?” Elmor persisted.

He ignored Elmor. He didn’t know what to say.

From behind him on his left, Maddie tapped him on his clenched fist. He turned to see the girl with matted and blood-splattered blond hair holding a headless porcelain doll. Her owl eyes looked up at him, disintegrating the opaqueness in the brashness of his eyes.

His fist uncoiled as she slipped her small fingers into his. She noticed the icy cold of the gold ring on his ring finger. They stood and watched while Elmor ran to help the others.

“Papa, we need to help too.”

The man glanced beyond the horrid presence, lost in a fog of regret emancipating forgiveness. Trapped in his own awakening, he looked down at his daughter.

“Yes, I believe we do. Let’s begin with Boneyard.”

And together, father and daughter walked toward the engine car where it stood intact and stoic, right at the junction where bent and straight track intersected.

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This story is inspired by the Barnum & Bailey Circus train crash that occurred on August 22, 1889 in Potsdam, NY. There are many accounts of the story, and what I’ve written is a blend of factual, fantastical and empathetic representation. It also commemorates the 146-year run of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, which ended in May 2017.

I have always been both fascinated and saddened by the circus. As a young girl, I imagined all the animals from across the globe being swiped from their natural environment, rounded up in cages and traveling via truck, train or ship to the circus sites. I imagined their training for the circus acts and wondered how they felt about it. I wondered if they missed their freedom, and if they came to love their trainers, the circus crowds and their new lives. The fascinated side of me knew it was an educational honor to see these animals up close, to learn about their behaviors and personalities. The saddened side of me fantasized about finding the keys to their cages and letting them all free. I’d imagine saying to them, “Home you go, dear creatures!”

When the circus ended, I felt a different kind of sadness. I felt for the people and animals who were loyal to each other and to the rhythm of their circus life, and then what? They all went on their merry way? I imagined the heavy hearts when saying good-bye and adjusting to a new life away from each other. People finding new jobs. Animals euthanized, returning to the wild or adjusting to life on preservations. The fascinated side of me also imagined the power of resilience and hope, that is instinct for both humans and animals. I imagined resilience and hope enlightening their connection with each other, transition, landscape, circumstances, emotions, memories and dreams.

From research I’ve done, I know P.T. Barnum was an impressive and successful business man. However, he was known as a hard fellow, and often neglected his family, spending more time with the circus than with his wife and four daughters. I often wonder if he experienced psychological denial and eventual regret about this, as well as regret about capturing animals from their wild lives so he could make a penny. This is why I had him experience mysterious dementia-like symptoms and then what appears to be a sudden awakening in this story. To be able to admit, “I don’t know” (as Mr. Barnum says in the story) shows significant humility, an essential and commendable aspect of being human. I wonder if he had an awakening and showed humility in real life.

And why am I so invested in this wonderment? Phineas Taylor (P.T.) Barnum is my great-great-great-great uncle. The wonderment is "in my blood."

I submitted this for The Runaway Train Challenge. Thanks for reading, and for considering a clicked heart, comment, Pledge and Tip if you so choose. See more of my writing and info about me here: Jessica Amber Barnum