Lauren--Part Fourteen

Splog # 51

Fourteen

   Splog, who had seated himself on the left side of the aisle, told Lauren, who had seated herself across from him, "Why don't you sit in front of me? It's too dark for you to see anything outside your window. But over here you can get a look at the Fe-San, and that might help you get an idea where you are."

   Lauren moved across the aisle and looked out. The train seemed to be going fairly slowly. From her window there wasn't much to see. Only the steps going up the Fe-San, the marble pavement ringing the bottom of it, and every so often a bench with a tall lamp at either end of it. The train was running around the base of the Fe-San and she didn't see any people waiting to get on and the train didn't stop so she didn't see anyone get off.

   "I don't see too much of anything that would give me any idea where I am. It looks pretty much the same all the way around."

   "Well, it isn't," said a voice that wasn't Splog's.

   Lauren looked in back of her and found that Splog had fallen asleep. Then she turned to her right and found the man who had taken her picture standing there, bending to hand her something.

   She automatically reached out to take it and found that she was holding a photograph of herself seated in the train. But something about her looked different. She gazed at the picture, trying to figure out why it didn't look exactly like her, even though it obviously was. Short, red, curly hair. Green eyes. Her clothes looked the same. There was an expression of surprise in her eyes and her mouth was half open, but that didn't make any real difference. But there was something that, if she had only had a quick glimpse of the picture, would have made her think she was looking at someone else, not herself. Absently, she turned the picture over. The back was stamped with the numerals 4, 8, 12 and 16 and underneath them the words in/out. The numerals "16" had been circled and there was a dark line through the word "in". Again, she turned the picture over and puzzled over a Lauren who seemed different from herself.

   "Does the picture satisfy?"

   Lauren hadn't realized that the man was still standing over her. She looked up abruptly at the sound of his voice and, without thinking, said, "Is that really me?"

   The man held out his hand for the picture and Lauren passed it back to him. He looked at it and then looked at Lauren. He then held the picture at arm's length so that he could look at the copy and the original at the same time. He seemed to be studying them both very carefully. As he was doing so, a voice said, "Four." Lauren looked around and then up at the ceiling because she couldn't tell where the voice had come from.

   "Nothing to be concerned about," said the man. "You're on to 16 and then you're going out." He paused, looked once more at the picture and then handed it back to Lauren.

   "Yep, I'd have to say that that's really you. Unless you're somebody else, disguised as you."

   "No, I'm me," Lauren said. "I'm Lauren."

   "Well, that's a right nice name. I'm pleased to meet you." He stuck out his hand to shake hers. "My name is Mason. I'm the ticket taker/maker on this locomotive. I try to make each ticket I create special so the people who ride with us experience something they'll never forget."

   Lauren looked back at her picture. It was definitely her, and yet there was something...

   "So you're going on 'out' tonight," said Mason. He had seated himself in the seat across from Lauren.” Are you on a long journey? It looks as though you've certainly tired out your traveling companion."

   Lauren glanced back at Splog. He was sitting with his hands folded together in his lap and his head nodding forward with the motion of the train.

   "I guess it was all the stairs," she mused.

   "Did you go up and down the Fe-San all at once?" Mason inquired.

   "Not up," Lauren let out a long breath. "I don't know if he could have managed that. No, we just came down."