Three Stops

The first thing Arthur noticed was that his leg had stopped aching. A botched surgery nearly thirty years ago had left him with a twinge in his right knee that persisted every morning when he awoke. But now he felt only smooth leather seats and a thin carpet under his bare feet. The pain was gone.

Arthur reached out his hands, touching the seats and the armrest to his right and the cool glass of a window to his left. Only then did he open his eyes. For a moment he thought he had fallen asleep wearing his glasses, but they were gone as well.

“I’m on a train,” Arthur said out loud, his voice scratchy but strong. He sat in the first row of a train car that was hurtling through a dark tunnel. The rest of the car was empty, and as Arthur stood on wary feet he noticed that the typical creaks and complaints from his joints had grown silent. He felt nothing except for a vague sense of contented exhaustion.

He’d probably just taken some melatonin and dozed off. That wouldn’t explain the train, or the tunnel, or the fact that his clothes had been replaced by a soft gray robe that swished around his ankles, but Arthur pretended that it was sufficient enough reasoning.

The door at the front of the train hissed open. A short, matronly woman in red coveralls bustled into the car and stopped when she saw Arthur in the aisle.

“Up and about, eh?” she asked. Her accent was clipped, British maybe, but the notion slipped away from Arthur’s thoughts as quickly as it had appeared.

“I’m sorry,” Arthur said, “but I’m afraid I don’t remember how I got here.”

The woman smiled at him. “Take a seat, Arthur,” she said.

Arthur obeyed, sliding back onto the bench in the first row. The woman produced a pad of stationery and a pen and handed them to him. There was no heading on the paper and nothing embossed on the side of the pen to give Arthur any clue as to where he found himself now.

“My name is Michele,” the woman said. “I am your conductor. Do you know why you're here?”

Arthur shrugged. Michele patted his shoulder comfortingly.

“Any guesses?” she asked.

“Two, really,” Arthur said. He glanced out the window at the blackness beyond. “Either I’m dreaming or I’m dead.”

He grinned at Michele, expecting a polite laugh in response, but she just raised her eyebrows.

“Close enough, dear,” she said. “You’re in a hospital, surrounded by your family as you take your final breaths.”

Arthur nodded. “I guess that makes sense,” he said, surprised at how calm he felt. Death came for everyone in the end. At least he could prepare for it.

“No further questions?” Michele asked. When Arthur shook her head, she gave him a tight smile and patted his shoulder again. “Then let’s talk about why you’re on this train.”

“Where are we going?” Arthur blurted out.

Michele looked off toward the front of the train, her eyes glazing over as they seemed to stare straight through the wood paneling and off into eternity.

“Away,” she said.

Arthur didn’t respond.

“Before we get there,” Michele continued, “we can make three stops at any destinations you choose. Anywhere you’ve been, anywhere you want to go, no exceptions.”

“Do I have to choose places with train stations?” Arthur asked.

Michele laughed at that, a high tinkling sound like the wind chimes on Arthur's front porch. She pointed at the stationery in Arthur’s hand.

“Just write down where you want to go,” she said.

Arthur scribbled a single word on the first sheet and ripped it from the pad. When Michele took the page, she stared at the word, lips moving silently, before she nodded and strode back out of the car. Arthur sat in silence, staring into the darkness outside. What a silly dream this was, he thought, especially as he’d never been a fan of trains.

The darkness fizzled. Spots of color broke through, burning the black away as sunlight streamed into the train car. It was a pure, white light, brighter and more dazzling than any Arthur had seen in his seventy-six years. It nearly blinded him as it banished the sight of the tunnel.

When Arthur’s vision cleared, the train was no longer in a tunnel. Indigo skies and soft clouds framed a ring of white sandy beaches in the middle of the ocean. Fields of coral spread like moss across the gently sloping sea floor around the atoll. Dozens of neat little villas with peaked roofs dotted the exterior of the island.

Arthur gasped and pressed one wrinkled hand against the glass. As the train chugged along, apparently traveling on the surface of the ocean itself, he could almost feel the heat of the Pacific sun on his skin and inhale the salty breeze through his nostrils.

The door slid open behind Arthur, but he didn’t turn around. He wanted to savor every moment in this place.

“How do you pronounce this?” Michele asked.

“Mushimasgali,” Arthur said. He laughed, a burst of joy that sounded unfamiliar from his own lips. “An island in the Maldives. My daughter and her husband honeymooned here.”

“Mushimasgali,” Michele echoed. “The driver knew it. He’s brought other passengers here. It’s breathtaking, eh?”

Arthur could make out the shapes of tourists on the beach, children running and parents lounging. It looked just as he’d imagined it.

“Have you ever been here?” Michele asked.

Arthur shook his head. “Of course not. Jean and I could never afford a…a place like this.”

“But you wanted to go.”

Arthur finally tore his eyes away from the window. “Always,” he whispered. “Can I get out?”

Michele shook her head sadly. “You have to stay on the train,” she said.

Arthur sighed. “Then I’m ready to leave.” He scribbled a few more words on the next slip of paper and handed it to Michele, who smiled when she read it.

“This is a popular one,” she said. “Just a minute.”

She disappeared into the front of the train. Arthur stared out at those gleaming beaches until the darkness of the tunnel overtook them. The train sped along in the emptiness, and Arthur felt the air growing thinner as the car climbed higher and higher. Or perhaps that was just his imagination.

Flurries of snow whipped at the window. The howling of icy winds announced the train’s arrival at a snow-covered mountain range. The train traveled along an invisible line, level with the highest peak Arthur could see. The mountains stretched out toward eternity, fading into the snowstorm that raged all around them. Even as the winds blew, the train carried on unscathed.

“I don’t think I could dream this,” Arthur said out loud.

“Agreed,” Michele responded. She had slipped in without him hearing. “I always find Everest fascinating.”

Arthur traced the tip of a nearby peak with his finger, imagining each brutal footstep that it would take to scale twenty-nine thousand feet of unforgiving rock and ice. “It scared me,” Arthur whispered.

“Did you ever go?”

Arthur chuckled. “I tried, once. I did the research, I trained, I pleaded with Jean to let me go. But I was never one for physical fitness, even before I hurt my knee.” He patted his right leg, expecting the familiar ache to return, forgetting that he was now in a place beyond pain. “I just wasn’t strong enough.”

“That’s what everyone thinks,” Michele said.

“Are they right?” Arthur asked.

Michele ignored the question. “Take as much time as you like,” she said, settling into the seat across the aisle.

Arthur stared at that desolate collection of rocks for over an hour, wondering why he had ever dreamed of scaling it. The train made a slow, broad circle around Everest’s highest peak as the wind battered the window, teasing Arthur, accusing him, daring him.

“I don’t know where to go next,” he finally said.

“Someplace nice,” Michele suggested. “Someplace that lights up your soul.”

Arthur wrote a few words, then crossed them out. He wrote a different word and handed the sheet to Michele. She took it wordlessly and left the car.

The barrage of snowflakes and gusts of wind gave way to the darkness of the tunnel once more. Arthur was thankful for the silence as he sat with his head leaning against the window. This train took him further away from his life with every passing moment, and he could only pine after the idea of something memorable, something worth revisiting.

A thousand gold and yellow pinpricks broke through the shroud. The electric illumination of a massive city sprang into view, with glorious colors bursting into life all around Arthur. This time, the streets and buildings and people popped into existence on every side of the train, which now rode on the famed Avenue des Champs-Élysées. Arthur gaped as the train wove through nighttime traffic with impossible grace, its wheels grinding steadily against invisible tracks. The imposing figure of the Arc of Triumph, l’Arc de Triomphe, split the streets ahead.

Michele sat on the bench across from Arthur and crossed her legs. “I see you took my advice literally,” she said. “What better place to light up your soul than the City of Lights, eh?”

Arthur tried to laugh. “I thought it would make me happier,” he said.

Michele had the wisdom not to ask if he’d been to Paris before. She chose a more painful question.

“Why?”

The train whipped around a tight curve, now heading southwest towards the Seine. Beyond the river, the pinnacle of the Eiffel Tower rose high above the surrounding buildings. It gestured towards the heavens, as if to remind Arthur that his final destination approached.

“I don’t know,” Arthur said. “I had a thousand reasons. Now they just feel small.”

Michele placed a hand on Arthur’s knee. “Jean would have loved it,” she whispered.

“Jean’s gone,” Arthur shot back, more viscerally than he had intended.

Michele didn’t flinch or back away. “How did she pass?” she asked.

Arthur’s lips curved into a thin smile. “She didn’t.”

They soared across the Seine. Arthur wished that the city could see them. It would be a marvelous thing to strike wonder and awe into the hearts of two million Parisians. It would be some kind of legacy, at least.

“Michele,” Arthur said, “you told me that my family was with me in the hospital.”

“I did,” Michele said.

“Is that true?”

Michele pulled her hand away and sat back in the seat. The old man and the conductor stared out at the city streets, deep in thought.

“We can stay here,” Michele said. “As long as you like. Time doesn’t matter when you’re on this train.”

Arthur considered it. “What’s the longest someone’s stayed on the train?” he asked.

“Three days,” Michele said. “In the end, they all want to go home. It’s the way humans are built.”

Arthur watched the passersby, the couples holding hands, the children licking spoonfuls of strawberry gelato, the young men and women laughing as they dined under the artificial light of a city that never slept. Then he snatched up the pad of paper from the adjacent seat and scribbled a few more words. He held the pad out to Michele, not bothering to tear off the sheet. She took it with hesitant hands.

“Three stops,” Michele said softly. “That’s what you get. That’s what they all get.”

“Please,” Arthur said.

As Michele read the paper, the corner of her mouth turned down in a quizzical frown. Then her eyes widened, and she smiled, a warm expression that truly seemed to light up her face for the first time.

“Maybe I can convince the driver,” she said. She winked at Arthur and stood to leave. Arthur watched her go, then closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the cool leather as the darkness of the tunnel fizzled around them once more.

There were no mountains, no sandy beaches, and no tourists when Arthur looked out the window. The gentle sun rose above a grove of oak trees that protected a neat little cul-de-sac half a mile from the nearest highway. The edges of the sidewalk crumbled into half a dozen unkempt grassy lawns, and beyond those sat the houses with rooftops bathed in heavy golden light. The faded stucco facades – alabaster gray, sea green, sky blue, burnt orange – had never seemed as majestic as they did now.

Arthur stood, his joints silently obeying, and pressed the button set into the wall at the front of the car. The door hissed open to reveal Michele, standing in the tiny compartment between cars, her hand already raised to open the door.

“Thank you, Michele,” Arthur said. He hugged her, wrapping his arms tightly around the conductor’s small frame. Her body felt somewhat ethereal in his hands, as if it were dissolving into the air, but she responded with an even tighter embrace.

“We can only stay for a minute,” Michele murmured into his chest.

“I thought time didn’t matter here,” Arthur said.

Michele didn’t try to leave the embrace. “I lied, Arthur,” she said. “Time is the only thing that matters.”

Arthur broke off the hug and patted Michele’s shoulder. “755 Summerset Drive,” he said. “I think this is finally my stop.”

He winked at Michele. She didn’t move to interfere as Arthur went to the compartment’s exit door and turned the handle. The train had slowed as it traced the edges of the cul-de-sac, barely crawling as it passed a house trimmed with once-bright yellow paint. Arthur took one last breath, then stepped off of the train and onto the pavement below.

The train continued its arc as Arthur’s bare feet tested the pavement one step at a time. He crossed the sidewalk, passing his old mailbox, and walked through the dewy grass until he reached the front porch. His wind chimes hung by the stairs, silent and motionless in the static air. When he turned back, the train was already leaving the cul-de-sac, fading into a shimmering patch of darkness beyond the intersection. He knew it wouldn’t return.

Arthur’s door was unlocked. As he stepped inside, his hand reached by instinct for the terracotta bowl sitting by the entryway, but his house key was already there. Jean had bought that bowl for their first apartment. Arthur still missed her, but today it hurt just a little bit less.

Passing through the kitchen, Arthur paused to look at a magazine clipping that hung from a magnet on his fridge. The stolid figure of L’Arc de Triomphe stood alone in the Parisian sunlight, strangely lifeless without the lights of the city dancing around it.

The dining room table was stacked with junk, old books and boxes and things he had promised Evie he would sort through before he passed. Arthur picked up The Beginner’s Guide to Mountaineering, a nearly pristine copy with a faded red bookmark tucked between pages forty-six and forty-seven. He chuckled and tossed the book back onto the pile.

The living room was dark, as the west-facing windows only picked up a hint of the light from the rising sun. With only a vague sense of contented exhaustion, Arthur crossed the carpet to the old green recliner in the corner, his joints refusing to complain as he settled in and pulled the side lever. The footrest sprang up, and the seat back lowered into a comfortable resting position.

The table next to Arthur’s recliner held a TV remote, a pair of glasses that he no longer needed, and a framed picture. Arthur brushed the remote and the glasses to the floor and picked up the frame. His daughter Evie and her husband beamed at the camera from the deck of a villa set on the edge of a coral reef. The calm seas of Mushimasgali stretched beyond the frame and into eternity.

Arthur set the picture back on the table. He lay back, the fingertips of his right hand feeling at the rip in the armrest, and stared at the dim ceiling. For the last time, Arthur closed his eyes and drifted off, his lips curling into a peaceful smile.

~

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed it, check out my other runner-up in the Runaway Train challenge, "Southbound".