Train Time by Dennis Stein

The abandoned train station was cool and dark, the floor a mosaic of papers and trash, the old ticket counter covered in a thick blanket of accumulated dust and grime. Most of the tall arched windows facing the unused track outside had been broken over the years, and tall weeds grew up outside, where once there were well-groomed cement flower boxes on the station platform.

  I stepped closer to the windows, seeing the rusty rails, and weather-rotted ties of the track. Dust motes floated as if defying gravity in the beams of sunlight entering the room, and for a moment in the silence broken only by an occasional drip of water somewhere in the gloom, I imagined this place as it might have been many years ago. People bustling about with their luggage, readying themselves for a grand adventure someplace far away. Everything shined and polished. It wasn’t that way today.

  On the far wall, there was a mold-covered route map, with many destinations on it, along with a board with the train timetable on it, partially obscured now by water damage and the growth of fungi. A large broken clock hung above both, one of its hands missing. Cobwebs hung off every surface that would possibly support them.

  Every step I took resulted in the snapping of shards of broken glass, or the ‘clink’ of shattered floor tile. Something flew out of the darkness above me, from an open ceiling tile, speeding off through the dimly lit room and out a far open door. A bat, my mind registered. Hopefully the only one.

  There was a slight splash of water, and I felt icy water infiltrate my shoe. Moving quickly, I stepped forward, hoping to avoid a soaking, as though I might somehow be able to walk on water. But instead, I reached a point where the floor had become slick with the growth of algae, and I lost my balance. Before I could catch myself, I slipped, my feet coming clear out from under me. I landed hard on my back, my head bouncing off the tiled floor.

  I opened my eyes, hoping that I hadn’t cut myself on any of the broken glass strewn about the floor. It was suddenly bright in the room. I blinked. Sitting up slowly, I rubbed the back of my head, conscious of the throbbing ache there.

  My breath caught in my throat as I looked around the room.

  The mold, the dank smell of rotting paper and woodwork were gone. The windows were whole again and sparkled in the brilliance of the room. A large, gilded chandelier hung in the middle of the ceiling above me, showering the room with its radiant illumination.

  I turned, looking at the ticket counter. It was amazing, made of glistening maple woodwork, with glassed-in wickets. Down the length of the room, there were long benches resembling church pews, made of the same warm, polished maple. There were several people seated there, a man reading a newspaper, a woman with two children chatting excitedly about their impending journey on the train.

  Everything was as clean as a whistle, and I picked myself up, embarrassed suddenly, even though my brain still struggled to understand how I was seeing all of this. The floor beneath me shone in black and white tiles, nothing like the slime-covered filth that I had fallen on a moment before.

  I gasped slightly, startled as a man dressed in coveralls moved past me, unseeing, mopping the floor.

  “Sorry,” I said, stepping aside, not sure that I was to blame for anything in the situation.

  I stepped toward the far wall, looking up at the route map again. It was clean and neat, showing the station names down the line. There were solid black lines, showing the normal route, and dotted ones where there was a siding, a junction switch that a train could take if the traffic on the lines was busy. The clock above ticked away, whole again and beautiful in its analog chronology.

  “Do you need a ticket for the 4:45?” asked a voice to my left.

  I turned, and at the ticket counter near me, was a man dressed in a black suit, his grey hair combed back meticulously, a matching moustache on his heavily lined face. On the breast of his suit jacket, I could see a logo from a long-forgotten railway.

  I froze. This was not a dream. This man had just addressed me.

  “I-I’m sorry?” I stammered.

  “For the train, it’s the last one headed to the big city today,” he replied with a gentle smile. “It’s almost train time.”

  I rubbed the back of my head again absently, as if trying to confirm to myself that this was real.

  “Train time?” I asked.

  “Yes. That is what we say when the train is due to arrive. But really, they tell the railroad men who work on the track that the number one rule is to expect a train on any track, in either direction, at any time. So, you see, any time could be train time…” he explained, suddenly checking a gold pocket watch from inside his suit jacket. “But the last train for today is at 4:45.”

  “I see,” I said, trying to digest what I had just heard. “I think I will just stay here.”

  The trainman was not a very tall man, but his eyes were bright, and his speech quick, clipped and professional.

  I wobbled slightly, and his expression changed. He looked concerned now.

  “Are you quite alright?” he asked. “Are you perhaps lost?”

  Through significant effort, I managed to straighten myself up and cleared my throat.

  “Yes, it is very warm outside; I might have had too much sun today,” I said.

  The trainman’s gaze softened.

  “Yes, well, have a seat in the waiting area, and if you like, I will get you some cool water,” he said.

  I considered this for a moment, and then just nodded, unsure of anything anymore. I made my way to one of the long pew-like benches, staying away from the other people I saw waiting there. I chose a spot where I could look out at the station platform, and I expected that a train might pull up at any moment, perhaps an old coal burning locomotive, wreathed in steam, puffing like a mechanical iron dragon.

  I sat, looking out the arched windows as the trainman approached again. He handed me a glass of water, and I drank greedily, the liquid seeming vaporous and unquenching. Without invitation, the man sat down beside me, looking out toward the track as well.

  “This station is beautiful. I always wondered what it would have been like,” I mused, realizing at the last moment how strange it might have sounded to him.

  He seemed to take no notice. After a moment, he spoke.

  “I have wondered the same thing at times. What the time before was like. And I imagine my father did the same before me, wondering about the past before him, and his father before him, the same. It is like a hall of mirrors, an image inside an image, forever reflecting the past. If one thinks about it, it goes back to the beginning of time…”

  His words echoed in my head, as I tried to wrap my mind around what he was saying.

  I heard a train horn, its long and short blasts somewhere nearby. People rose from their seats around us, readying their suitcases. It was time for the last train of the day. The trainman waited another moment, and then stood up, straightening his suit jacket.

  “I must leave you, to attend the passengers on the platform,” he said with a slight bow in my direction. “I hope you find what you are looking for.”

  I looked up at him, his kind eyes shining down on me.

  “Thank you,” I said. “For everything.”

  He nodded politely, and turned curtly, heading down the room toward the open doors to the platform outside. There was a flurry of activity, and the scenery around me blurred, my vision going in and out.

  The light turned to dark, the sounds changing, becoming distant, as though I was hearing them through a pipe that I had brought my ear up close to. The smell of decay filled my senses, and I felt as if I was falling suddenly, down into a well of strange sensations.

  As my vision cleared, I looked up at a dark ceiling, encrusted with the dark stains of water everywhere. The chandelier was gone, leaving the stump of an electrical receptacle in its place. I suddenly felt the cold beneath me, the wet.

  I sat up groggily, the water running down my back, my shirt stuck to my skin by the putrid liquid that I had been lying in. I breathed in deeply, coughing because of the dust in the air.

  The station was silent, except for the occasional ‘plink’ of dripping water in the gloom. My head hurt.

  Getting to my feet, I made my way out of the end of the old building. The sun hit me as I appeared, and the events that had been in my mind slowly began to dissolve in the warm radiance. The trainman’s face remained, his grey hair and moustache, his black suit, his kind eyes.

  I needed to get away from here. My thoughts swam as I made my way along the abandoned track with its rusted rails and worn wood ties. My mind began to clear, and I breathed in the fresh spring air, thankful to be out in the sun. My thoughts returned to the Trainman. Who was he? Why had he appeared to me? And how?

  The questions remained as I walked down the right-of-way, conscious of the fact that it would have been extremely dangerous to walk where I was, had it been a time now passed. At that realization, I stopped.

  The sounds of spring were all around me. The trilling of the toads in a pond nearby, the small songbirds flitting from tree to tree. The smell of fresh green growth was on the breeze, and the heat of the sun warmed my bones.

  What was the Trainman trying to tell me?

  I looked at my watch. My gaze froze on the numbers that suddenly felt like they were burning themselves into my brain. It was 4:45. A long way off, somewhere, I was certain that it was not the cry of birds that I could hear, but the long and short blasts of a train horn…