Here is a short story I wrote March 3rd, 2005. Anybody pick up on the significance of that date?
The story is supposed to be a metaphor for life. Let me know what you think.
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The Train Ride
It’s cold. It’s dark. The few lights on the platform appear to have been vandalized recently leaving you, and the other passengers, to wait in the dark. Without light, the others are amorphous shapes, moving very little or not at all. But you can hear them. Their voices are the only things you can hear. You don’t listen though; you don’t care. You just want the train to get there before you freeze. Your winter garments – gloves, jacket, hat, scarf – seem to be doing little if anything to hold back the ferocious cold. You fully realize how cold you are as you fumble with a match to try and light a cigarette. After failing with two matches, you give up – you need to quit anyways.
After what seems like an eternity, the voices are muffled by the grinding of the approaching train’s wheels. A flood of light follows, and then a flood of warmth as the doors open. You help an older woman get her bags off the train and exchange formalities with a young woman as you let her board ahead of you. Only a smile and a nod is exchanged. Then, it’s your turn.
It’s one of those nice new trains. There is still a relatively clean carpet on the floor – not too many stains yet – and the seats are not yet worn around the edges. There are nice wood tables with well-hidden garbage cans at the center of each four-seat cluster. Even the glimpse you caught of the bathrooms as you entered into the main cabin was impressive.
Now, a seat. There were plenty of free seats, but each cluster is already occupied by at least one person. You want a whole cluster to yourself. You don’t want to have to share if you didn’t have to. You want to be comfortable, to have your space, to have your freedom. Sufficient searching presents you with exactly what you were looking for: a cluster to yourself, with a pretty woman in the neighboring cluster. You ask her what time it was, but you can tell she isn’t interested.
Almost immediately after you had sit down, a woman with drinks arrives offering you everything the restaurant car offers but without the hassle of having to get up. “Coffee, Tea?†she says as she passes.
‘An excellent idea,’ you think to yourself as you realize she has already made the decision for you. It’s good to be served.
As you indulge yourself in the warmth of the coffee, you begin to feel your face and your hands again. With the caffeine now pumping through your system, you feel wide-awake, you feel alive again!
The last few drops of your coffee disappear down your throat followed by hunger. When, after 20 minutes, she doesn’t come back you begrudgingly lift your self from the warmth of your seat, careful to place your jacket over both seats on your side of the cluster, ask your uninterested new lady friend sitting across from you to watch your belongings, and then head to the restaurant car to get the sandwich yourself.
While there, you chat with a young woman, but she has little interest in anything beyond the casual conversation over a drink and you both return to your seats at the same time with little said since leaving the restaurant car. The other one is still there keeping a watchful eye on your belongings, and you thank her as you sit down. It would appear you a riding alone tonight. Your seat, still warm, welcomes you as you take to looking out the window. Although it’s dark, there is an occasional light from a house, car or street lamp, which provides glimpses of the world outside the train. Although you certainly don’t want to be out there, you are curious to see, to know.
After an hour or so, your trance is interrupted by a ‘have a good evening.’ You turn and see the girl from the bar is leaving.
‘A pity she’s not getting off at my stop,’ you think to yourself as her, and the others step off into the darkness and are replaced by a group of new comers. When the new comers come through the doors into the main cabin, their cheeks are a nice rosy color. Yours looked like that when you got on the train. One of them, a young woman, not too much younger than you, enters and takes up residence in the cluster next to you. That is when you realize your neighbor has left as well. The new girl has a very unfriendly look about her and seems absorbed in whatever she’s listening to on her headphones, so you decide not to ask her the time.
Now you really are alone. Feeling this, you now notice now that newcomers search out the empty clusters, choosing to sit by themselves rather than try to enjoy the company of one of your mutual companions in travel. ‘What a silly practice,’ you think to yourself. Wiser after the girl in the bar, you are quite sure the ride would have been better spent chatting with someone. Perhaps you might have even learned a thing or two.
As your stop your approaches you realize it’s implications: cold and dark, again. Panicking a bit now, you quickly scan the cabin for the woman who had served you the coffee with such a pleasant gentleness in her manner. She’s nowhere to be found and you need a stiff drink to prepare you for what’s about to come. But there is no time. You recognize the area; you’re very close now. Gathering your things slowly and gloomily you say goodbye to the warmth of your chair. Someone else will be taking your space shortly, and there is nothing you can do about it. Could they possibly appreciate the warm cabin and soft seat enough? Did you?
Now the train’s breaks begin to screech as the train begins to stop. You feel the force of the deceleration. You hadn’t noticed it at the other stops, but now, it is all you can focus on. It’s as if it were out to ruin your last few minutes of warmth.
The doors finally open and a blast of cold hits you. It seems to be colder and darker than before. One, two steps, and you are back in the cold, in the dark, again.
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