Trains

What happens after death? A girl called Lara find out. Taken from the point of view of death.

A great white light. Lara bathes in that light. She is quite blissfully unaware of where she is. She doesn’t care. She would wake up quite soon. She is sure of that. But until then she is quite happy to… float? To lie? To sit? (One of those or many others, in that light). As an observer, it is hard to describe where she is. However one should try. Imagine a place of limbo, a place where all of the natural laws of physics don’t exist. That includes time and gravity and sound, even light. Everything around us is white light and this light stretches out into the distance. If you carry on walking you will end up in the exact place you started with. Quite hard I know. And who am I? Very good question… all shall be crystal clear soon.

            Ah! She stirs! This is the moment I have been waiting for. I bend down and tap her shoulder. “Excuse me.”

            Lara mumbles something unintelligible and rolls over. “Now Lara, you need to… get up. Now.”

            “In a minute mum,” Lara grumbles, putting her hands over her eyes.

            “Lara, I am not your mother. Get up. Now.”

            “What?” Lara finally opens her big green eyes and stares up at me, “Who the heck are you?”

            “Someone who is supposed to be getting you up,” I tell her. I hold my hand out for her take. She looks at it like a dead fish.

            I sigh and say, “It is polite to take it.”

            She takes it and pulls herself up. She looks around, bewildered. “Where are we?”

            “We are nowhere yet we are somewhere. We are in the air but yet are touching the ground.”

            She raises an eyebrow at me and says, “You know you don’t make sense. Is that a riddle or what?”

            I smile a smile that knew things and say, “In short the rules that governed you before don’t apply any more.”

            A mischievous grin spreads across Lara’s face and she asks, “Does that mean I can drink vodka in a bar now?”

            I suppress a groan and reply in a tight voice, “No, not those type of rules.”

            “Oh,” she stares at the nothingness below her and shuffles her feet awkwardly. “So… what do we do now?”

            “We wait.”

            “For what?”

            “For the train.”

            “The train that will take me home?”

            I stare at her incredulously, does she remember anything? “No, you can’t go home.”

            “But I have to get home! My mum and dad are going to freak if I don’t.”

            This time my mouth actually drops open. “You don’t remember do you?”

            “Remember what? Who are you anyway? Why am I here?”

            I turn to look at her and eye her critically. I take a good look at her. She is quite pretty as humans go. She has large green eyes, soft gold hair, perfect oval face, even features and a slender figure. She is wearing presumably the clothes she had left with: a glittering cocktail dress, six inch high stiletto heels and a number of bangles and jewellery. The only bad point of the whole piece is the make up smeared across her face: the eye shadow that is smudged across her eyes, the lipstick that is coated thickly across her lips like some over sweet icing on a cake, the foundation that looks a mile deep. But all in all she is a very pretty young girl. Such a waste. “Everything will become clear if you remember what happened before you came here,” I explain calmly.

            Lara nods and shivers. She rubs at her arms, obviously trying to get warm. A futile task, hadn’t I told her that those laws don’t work anymore?

            “Could you give me a hint?” she asks, a pleading look in her eyes.

            I sigh, “Use your intuition, what are you wearing at the moment?”

            She looks down at herself and cries, “Oh!”

            “Remember?” I ask. Finally we are getting somewhere.

            “Yes! It was Jake’s birthday party! He had this huge house party and it was so much fun. Great music, awesome lights, even some fireworks! Someone had even managed to sneak in some cider and vodka!”

            “I think that’s when your memory went,” I say with distaste in my voice.

            She looks sheepish then, even blushing a little, “Yeah well it was great anyway we were partying ‘til 4 in the morning! And the amount of guys who wanted to dance with me was huge! They all thought I was fit. Even this 20 year old guy wanted me! How cool is that? I think I have still got his number.”

            “How old are you exactly?” more disgust seeping into my voice then was politely necessary.

            “16, hey no biggy, I am legal,” she says defensively.

            “For what exactly?” I ask, in a polite reasonable voice. I felt like adding something to that but it would not be polite.

            “You know what I mean,” she says, winking mischievously. She wiggles her spangled covered bum and giggles.

            I look away in disgust. When did teenage girls get so vulgar? “What happened after that?” I ask, not sure if I want to know.

            “I am not sure… I drank quite a lot that night. I think he offered to take me home. It’s all so hazy… I think I let him take me home.”

            I turn around to look at her, my eyes drilling holes into her leafy green eyes. So much wasted life in those eyes. “Then what happened?”

            “We… we were laughing. Listening to music… talking? Then… then…” she shakes her head like she is trying to shake a box of puzzle pieces into place. “Then… then I remember two white lights coming for our side… two lights that were coming really fast. I heard the sound of… a train… a train…”

            She is silent as she realises. Her face is the perfect picture of shock.

            “Now do you remember?” I ask disdainfully. She may be pretty but she is so naïve. Who gets into a car with a man you have been partying with until 4 o’clock in the morning, while drinking alcohol? I finally say the words I have been waiting to say this whole time: “You stupid, stupid, silly little girl.”

            Tears spill over her eyes, smearing more of her make up. “Am I unconscious? Am I in hospital?”

            “Well you’re body is. Your soul however… that is a different matter.”

            Lara begins to sob. Great fat tears roll down her face, creating clean trails down her cheeks. Between the choked sobs she asks: “I am dead?”

            “Almost, we are just waiting for the train. It should be here any moment,” I glance at the wreak beside me, “I will give you your ticket soon.”

            Lara collapses onto her knees and tugs at the bottom of my trousers. “Please, please, please don’t make me go!”

I bend and pull the material out of her clenched fingers. “You made your choice,” I say calmly.

“Please!” she grovels. She clasps her hands as if she was praying. As if God can hear her now. “Please, please, please, please! I beg you!”

“You should not have got into that car.”

I think I am the only one who noticed the train station that forms around us. It looks like your regular train station, except spotlessly clean. Seats lined the walls, the tracks are just in front of us, and there is even a clock and timetable hanging over us. They are blank. There are still no colours just the same plain white. The only things that have colours are ourselves.

I search in the pockets of my jacket and pull out the thick piece of rectangular card, the ticket Lara would need to get on the train. Lara is still snivelling at my feet. I grab the top of her right arm in a vice like grip and force her onto her feet. She trembles and whimpers slightly. Pathetic. She stares at me with bloodshot eyes, her make up even more smudged then before. “Who are you?” she asks in a broken, shaky voice.

“I have been called many things,” I say looking down the tracks to my left, “where is that train?” I say impatiently.

“What have you been called?” she asks in the same quavering, broken voice.

“I was once called the Boatman. But that was a very, very long time ago.” I say still looking down the rails, “some people can refer me to the Reaper. But I am now known as the Trainman. The person who makes sure the people who need to get on the train get in the train.”

“But… you’re a girl,” Lara whispers hoarsely.

“No, I appear as a girl to you but technically I have no gender neither do I have any real appearance. Ah,” I say as I hear the rattling of the train coming closer. I turn to her and hand her the ticket, “There you go. You are all set now.”

As soon as the ticket is in her hands, not bothering to read it, she tries to rip it, her fingernails scratching at the thick card. She even uses her teeth, gnawing on a corner like some rabid dog.

“That really won’t work,” I say while the train’s rattling got louder.

“Go away you creep,” she snarls, still gnawing on the card.

“Now, now there is no need to be rude,” I reply. I calmly manage to pull the ticket away from the clasping hands. The ticket is, of course, pristine and smooth.

“Get ready for boarding,” I tell her, “I will present the ticket since you are being so immature. What would you do without me?”

That is when the train pulls in. It is the same perfect white as everything else is and was a sleek, streamlined, silver snake. It slows and finally stops with no ugly screeching of brakes. A pair of doors opens smoothly in front of us, behind which stood the ticket inspector. He is average height and he has cropped jet black hair. He wears crystal white uniform with a cap. He is completely spotless and pristine as he always is. He has piercing black eyes that stare at Lara with intense speculation. “Ticket please,” he says gruffly, his face expressionless. I hand him the ticket. He rips the ticket down the seam. He gestures to Lara, “This for her?”

“Of course,” I say calmly. I take the top of Lara’s right arm again and gently pull her forward. She is beyond wailing and crying now. She is finally accepting it. She climbs onto the train and takes a seat as far away from the doors as possible. “Make sure she gets there safe,” I murmur, my eyes still trained on her.

He tips his cap to me, “Always do, Ma’am.”

I sigh heavily, “do not call me that, you know I hate it.”

“Pardon,” he says in the same gruff voice. He steps back and the doors slide shut. I glance at the girl. She now looks frozen in her place. She still has no expression as the train pulled away. I continue to watch her as the train begins to pick up speed. I only stop looking when the train has disappeared into the nothingness.

I look around to find the train station gone. I am back in the middle of the white nothingness. Except for one thing. There is another being there with me. Another soul to ferry. A man by the looks of him, an old one at that with frail, wisp like white hair and weathered brown skin. He is unconscious to and the absolute opposite to the lost girl in the glittering cocktail dress. He has probably died peacefully in his sleep, happy with his life.

I sigh and straighten my jacket. I feel my appearance changing, as it always does with a new client. Certainly not the first and definitely not the last.

You may ask why I do this job. It’s just a job to me. I am always busy with it. I get to meet lots of people all shapes and sizes, the young and the old, the ones who have wasted their life and the ones who are happy with their lot. You can judge me if you want but I am just doing a job that I have done for the past few billion years. Can you blame me?

Author's Note

This idea just popped into my head one day and I had to write it down.

Reviews

[Jason Galliger]

When I read this i can't help but think of two things: the scene in Deathly Hallows at Kings Cross station, and the scene in Matrix Revolutions. Both contained Train's and to some degree "trainmen". This is very well written though I noticed one little thing that could be changed. When you say " I smile a smile that knew things" it's a little awkward you might want to try "I smiled knowingly and said....". I look forward to reading more soon.