the next part

On the way to the freight train, cold sweat and crumpled bills, the ticket is lined with brown coffee rings, a memento from the hotel stay. I look at the cloudy sky long enough to take in the strange numbness of it all, it looks like rain but I hadn't seen a drop since I got off the plane.

Everyone is so meek and quiet, I'm wearing a grey jacket over a brown and black wool suit and I feel garish and out of place. I try looking sullen and withdrawn, no need to draw attention so early in the game. The line to the train is longer than I had anticipated so I stand and think about what had happened since arriving.

My mind comes up blank, I curse myself, I was too far from home to be having blackouts and memory loss, there was a girl with me, I can remember that much at least. Her hair was black and her eyes brown blue, she smelled of jasmine and had kissed me after we had gotten off the passenger plane. Her heart-shaped face blurs and dissipates, her name escaped me and then shortly after that everything else went too.

The people did a strange half-shuffle forward and I can see the train from where I'm standing, a depressing metal capsule that looks like it was built during the second world war, a coughing belch of black smoke waters my eyes and I wonder if it had every seen a mechanics wrench in that time.

The pregnant sky pushes down and the smell of unwashed bodies and coal makes me remember something for a fleeting second, a man in a tan overcoat with tattooed hands taking a book from me, no I gave it to him because I was going somewhere, his face was an echo of a tan blob and then I lost it.

The train pulls forward with a screaming protest and then another set of rusted doors open, everyone walks up eyes downcast, I stare at my dirtied boots and try not to look like so much cattle going to the slaughter. I look at my hands and note the circular scars on both palms; two pedestals, smoking flesh, darkness.

My head is hurting so I force myself to stop trying to recall things that want to stay hidden, the line is picking up speed and before I can rethink my decision I'm standing shoulder to shoulder with a car full of peasants farmers, I'm a full head above them all and can see to the end of the car,a broken window over a bolted door shows another car just as crowded.

The train howls with a shudder and the ancient beast rolls down the track, the smell is enough to make me wince; sweat, urine and burnt coal. Am I a prisoner, why would I want to come to this place? The window to my left shows an obscured line of black mountains that hold the massive dome of clouds in the air. Even the view sucks.

Everyone finds  a rhythm and I find myself swaying along with the silent mass, no one says a word so I nudge someone and whisper in an entirely too loud of a voice,

"Where are we going?"

The person looks at me with blank eyes and slack jaw, I quickly look away and mutter an apology, someone behind me taps me on the shoulder, the voice of a tired old woman pipes up,

"The factory, who are you, boy?"

No malice just simple curiosity, I crane my neck but can't spot her,

"Names Justin, and I don't know, I can't remember much past yesterday morning."

"You're American."

"I guess so."

"You shouldn't be here, you don't need to work for Mr. Belgrade."

The name is like a bolt of lightning to my brain and I yell out in sudden shock, images of a dark skinned man with an enormous smile, he scared me but I had to find him. That didn't make any sense. An image of the same man standing with a book in his hands, short gray hair and a groomed beard, a room at the top of a tower, an open window showing the same line of mountains that roll along to our east. His face is old and lined with wrinkles, his neck is scribbled with odd symbols and bright circles.

I come to in the train and try to hold unto what I had just seen, it held, just barely. The old woman didn't say anything else so I had to make do watching the clouds darken out the single long window.