A Historical Convenience

The violent movement of the train wakes the sleeping man finding the empty stein splattered all over the table and dribbling into the seat of the booth he shares with a well-dresses woman. Flickering lights concern the passengers where the man is confused on how he got on the train to begin with noting the style is familiar, but cannot place the time period. The man finds cigars in his green uniform pocket and decides he needs to smoke a cigar at that moment in the smoking car right behind his current train car as the rest of the passengers are in shock and hold loved ones. While smoking he somehow finds the lack of technology soothing unsure why him seeing a child’s coloring book and crayons thrown on the ground soothing while on his way to the smoking car. The train is going fast blaring past trees with all the windows opened by curious passengers noting a green train station, then a yellow train station, and finally a orange train station. The train makes a violent jerk to the right, the lights flicker on and off a bit before cutting off, and after the screaming dies the lights return on like nothing happened with the train chugging along at a quick speed. The man returns to his seat assuming the train had an electrical glitch with all beverages and coloring activities back on their tables where the well-dressed women read or look out the windows still blaring the same scenery, the children play and giggle, and the men are dressed in either uniforms or suits. The men in uniforms salute the man which has him look around seeing German military uniforms and comfortable civilians realizing he has no idea of what anyone is saying after deducing he is on a German train. The man salutes back to his seat to check his pockets finding only the cigars in a box, a wedding band on his left hand, and a small piece of paper with “Bolzano” and a German address on the folded inside part. The writing looked scribbled as if in a hurry and people watches unaware of anything being said besides Paris figuring the train either left Paris or is heading towards Paris figuring he may find out eventually when the train finally stops. Hours pass with the same series of events occur: the lights flicker where he decides to smoke another cigar unable to stop himself as the same trees, green train station, yellow train station, orange train station, and a hard jerk to the right occurs while smoking in the smoking car only to repeat once he reenters the train car where he is seated as if a time loop from hell or repeating bad dream is occurring. The cigars run down to the last one where the man, assuming he is a officer of some kind and in the SS having found lighting bolts on his collar, accepts his salutes on his way to smoke in the smoking car. This series of events repeats and repeats as the runaway train keeps going into nothingness driving the man insane seeing the same men, women, and children repeat their activities or conversations for hours as if nothing is wrong. Staying in the smoking car this time after the hard jerk to see if this changes anything the man attempts to read the newspaper in the train car unable to read read the newspaper as it is in German, but skims seeing the date having taking high school German recalling very little from the course says, “6 Juni 1944” and remembers that date is important for some odd reason unable to place his figure on. Being up for almost 24 hours of countless loops he closes his eyes in the smoking car instead of returning to the train car as usual falling asleep on the sofa hoping to perhaps wake up a train station and not the time loop hell he woke up to.

The man wakes up on another sofa and feels relief aware he is home seeing the Dallas Morning News say, “June 7, 2024” on his coffee table and gets up seeing the empty cigar box and the folded paper in his right pants pocket. This freaks him out realizing he was not dreaming as he thought and instantly Googles “June 1944 train incidents leaving or heading towards Paris, France” getting a list of train accidents with one occurring on June 8th of 1944. This references to an autobiography by Hans Feuerbaum called A War Criminal on the Roter Express who was the only survivor of the train derailment. The German train was taking fleeing Germans to Berlin passing the Green train station in Dusseldorf, the yellow train station in Hannover, and lastly the orange train station in Leipzig after a Allied bomber detoured the train. The Colonel at the time was reassigned to take charge of Bolzano concentration camp after a two-week rest and recovery in his home in Berlin after Allied bombing for D-Day shut down the concentration camp he was in charge of causing a mass liquidation of the inmates population inside. At the train station his new bride and parents were waiting for him. Former Colonel Hans Feuerbaum, the German version of the retired U.S. Marine John Firetree’s name, died of old age in 2005 and served 20 years for War Crimes against Humanity from 1960 to 1980 in a West German prison. The war criminal survived due to the violent jerk to the right freeing the smoking car from the rest of the train that derailed minutes later only two miles from the Red train station in Berlin where the Feuerbaum family was waiting for their loved one. The Colonel reunites with his loved ones after rescue enjoying his two weeks before serving at Bolzano where thousands of inmates die being worked to death if starvation or disease did not get to them first. The man, John Firetree, continues on his day taking a train to and from work as the owner and manager of his train hobby shop named The Red Express near the State Fair of Texas where his pregnant wife Hannah Feuerbaum runs a nearby café Berlin Coffee originally owned by her parents who moved from West Germany in the late-1980s. They died before Hannah met John Firetree in 2015 and his wife never learned German since her parents left the language in West Germany speaking only English around their only child who was born in Dallas on 8 June, 1994 50 years after the train derailment near the Berlin train station.