Memory Train

“Robin, what are you doing here?!” A voice yelled from the distance. The Earth shook violently under Robin’s feet as the sound of falling rocks and rushing water surrounded him. One moment he was driving in his top-down red corvette, to Escalante Canyon, a frequented hiking spot during his college years. The next moment, the mountain loomed higher and the river of the canyon became a waterfall as he drove further in. When he first arrived to the parking area of his favorite trail, he saw a man who had been his close friend during college, but they had gotten busy with life after graduation, they lost touch with each other. He asked with a smile on his face “what are we doing here Robin?,” but just as soon as he did, the surroundings began to shift. The ground rumbled as the mountains moved away yet reached higher to the skies , the roar of the river-turned-waterfall grew more intense and louder. The car disappeared, along with his friend and Robin couldn’t gather his thoughts- the sudden yet gradual change frightened him. The rumbling seemed to slowly fill his body and then the voice shouted -“Robin, what are you doing here?!” Robin could hear him but couldn’t see where his friend was. The scene started to darken as if he was falling away from it. He glanced at the waterfall, then the skies above the mountains, feeling the rumbling of the Earth, confused to what was happening.

The rumbling slowly faded into Robin’s subconsciousness and the vibrations shook his body, gradually waking him from dream state to reality. He tried to keep the dream going but the vibrations grew more intense and he could no longer keep himself in his sleep. He blinked himself awake, more confused of where he was now than when he thought he was falling on a mountain. Robin leaned up from his seat, looked out a window to his left. Blurs of grays and tans of a desert plain rushed past. “Where am I?” Robin thought to himself. “How did I get here?” He realized he was on a train, but the reason why escaped him. He looked around the car of the train but it was empty of people. He stiffened up in his seat. He thought of a ticket, that would certainly tell him where he had left and where he was heading! He checked each pocket he could, his pants, his jacket, his vest. No luck of any papers. On the table in front of his seat sat a small briefcase. “Clearly it must be mine,” he thought. He reached for the bag to search further for a sign of where he was, or where he had been, or at the very least, where he was going. No tickets. No itinerary. Not even a passport. He came across a brown leather wallet. It held a credit card set to expire in 2006, a couple hundred dollars in cash, a Colorado driver’s license with his information- Robin Nielsen, date of birth October 7th, 1935- and a Polaroid photo of himself in a tuxedo and a woman in a white gown. As he looked at the photo, Robin knew it was a wedding photo and thought the woman held a familiar face, but could not think of her name or play forward any memories he had after that moment in the photo. All he could bring to mind was a blank.

The chugging of the train interrupted his thoughtful gaze. Robin looked out the window, watching the outside world. The plains were turning into rolling hills. In the very far distance, a snow capped mountain range could be seen. He took the moment to appreciate the natural world passing him by before remembering what he couldn’t remember when he woke up- why he was on a train and where he was going. "I run the train!" The thought alarmed him so, that he nearly shot up from his seat but quickly realized that it had been years since he retired as an engineer for the railroad. Relaxing back into his seat, Robin felt puzzled. He looked around to the silence of the train car. He looked further ahead to the next car, and could see a young lady heading towards his direction.

“Miss?” Robin called out as she stepped from the one car to the one he had awoken in.

“Yes Mr. Nielsen?” The young lady looked up to greet the old gentleman.

Robin blinked in surprise that she knew his name.

She made her way down the aisle of the train, approaching Robin as he watched her. “Is there something you need?”

“Well yes, where are we heading?”

“Oh Mr. Nielsen!” The young lady laughed, “you sure are silly!”

“Oh, well, ha,” Robin forced out a chuckle as the young lady laughed sweetly, as if he should have known her and the destination they were heading.

“Would you like a cup of tea or some water?” She smiled at him, as if his question was a simple playful joke but she knew the truth about Mr. Nielsen. It was best to not remind him of certain things.

“Oh, uh, sure! How about some tea then?” Robin was baffled that the young lady laughed off his question yet was being so kind and offered him tea. The young lady nodded and turned to walk back to the car she had come from.

“Surely she should know where we’re going” Robin was thinking of a different way to ask the same question in hopes of receiving the answer he was needing when a small boy bounded up the aisle towards him.

“Hey, are you a Grandpa?!” The young boy stopped at the edge of the seat across from the old man and asked with curious excitement when his eyes caught Robin’s.

“Well yes I am!” replied Robin. He thought distantly of a little boy he knew, playing on a swing set in summer while Robin watched on. He tried to think of his son, he knew his son's name was Bryce but that was all his mind could form to remember. Only the little boy came to mind, and Robin knew well enough it was his grandson. “My grandson's got to be about your age now! Why do you ask little man?”

“I never met my grandpa, I always wondered what one would be like. Do you like being a grandpa?”

“I do, very much! My grandson's name is Michael. What’s your name?”

“Robin!”

“Hey! That’s my name too!”

“Cool!” The little boys face lit up as he looked at the old man.

Robin smiled back, motioned for the little boy to take the seat across from him. Robin was now enjoying the company of the excited boy, despite still being confused to why he was on a train and where he was heading.

“What’s your favorite part about riding the train?" Asked the little boy also named Robin.

“Oh! Well I love to see the scenery changes. The way the landscapes are so vastly different yet blend together so well over distance and time. What about you?”

“The food.”

“Oh!” Robin chuckled, “well I definitely can’t disagree with that! What’s your favorite food?"

"Cheeseburgers!"

“Well don’t eat too many at once! Might get a stomachache.” Older Robin pat his belly as he laughed with Little Robin.

“I won’t, I promise!” The little boy had an excitement that seemed uncontainable, and Robin took notice to it.

“Why are you in this train? Heading somewhere special? You seem very excited to be here.”

“I’m going to my first away game for my baseball team! My parents couldn’t afford it but at the last minute my coach was able to get me a ticket so I could play with my team!” The little boy spoke so quickly it would've been easy to have missed everything he said, but Robin understood it all. A familiar feeling came flooding into Robin’s body as the little boy told him his reasons for being on the train. He felt the little boy’s excitement in him, the same giddiness and anxiousness to arrive to something long awaited.

“I know exactly how you’re feeling!” He started remembering a similar experience from when he was a young boy. Robin could feel the emotions but he couldn’t bring the memory to form in his mind of what experience made him relate to what the little boy was feeling.

“Yeah?!” Beamed the little boy. “What are you excited for? Where are you going?”

“Well honestly I can’t remember exactly right now where I’m heading, or what happened, but I do know I was about your age when something similar happened to me and I remember feeling just like you are right now. Excited and nervous, anxious to just get there already!”

“Exactly how I’m feeling! Did you play any sports when you were younger?”

“I sure did! Robin sat for a second. He knows he did. What were the sports? Why wasn’t the memory coming to him?

“I remember doing many sports. Even baseball, like you!” Robin couldn’t remember playing baseball but he did remember his baseball coach, so that had to mean he played baseball at least.

“Cool!” The little boy could see the hint of confusion on Robin’s face. “Everything okay?”

“Oh yes! Just having a little trouble remembering some things. Comes with the old age I guess.”

“Oh gotcha. Well I’m sure you have awesome memories. Is there any memory you do remember?”

Robin did have a memory come to mind of when he was this young boy's age. A camping trip that he nearly missed, like most other trips due to his parents being unable to afford to send him on field trips or school events. The 5th grade camping trip was the highlight of ending elementary school, a trip no kid would want to miss. Thanks to Robin’s baseball coach, he didn’t have to be a kid who missed out on it. Robin never knew how his coach was able to get him on the trip, or why this was a trip his parents agreed to let him go on, but Robin still holds a heart of gratitude to his coach and a strong memory of the camping trip. The old man told the story to the young boy until the young lady whom Robin had seen earlier was approaching with a pitcher of tea and a cup.

"Okay Mr. Nielsen, here is your cup of tea!" The young lady set the pitcher down on the table and placed the full teacup in front of Robin.

"Oh thank you Miss!" Robin looked at the young lady and back to the seat across from him. The young boy was now gone. Robin's smile slowly fell as he looked around, puzzled at the sudden disappearance of the young boy.

The young lady took notice of Robin looking about and asked if everything was alright.

"Well, yes, I was just speaking with a young boy, telling him my story of when I went to camp. Where did he run off to?" Robin looked from one end of the train to above the seat behind him to see if the boy had left so Robin could have his tea alone, which he didn't want. He enjoyed the company of the young friend he had made and wanted to continue their stories together.

"Ah, well he must've had to return to his parents in the other car. I'm sure he'll be back some other time." The young lady smiled at Robin, hoping that would deter him from continuing to look.

"Oh, well, alright." Robin looked down at his cup of freshly warmed tea, disappointed that his visit with the young boy also named Robin couldn't continue. "Where are we heading again?" he asked the young lady, thinking that he knew the answer but just couldn't remember.

The young lady looked at him, unsure of how to answer the ever-revolving questions of Mr. Nielsen. "Maybe this time will be different," she thought.

"Well, Mr. Nielsen... you are on a train that doesn't stop." The young lady paused and watched Robin's face. The old man looked up from his cup of tea, his brows burrowed in confusion. The silence lingered for a couple of minutes and the young lady felt a discomfort bellying up inside her. "Mr. Nielsen? Are you alright?"

"How does a train not stop?!" Robin laughed a little, confused at the silly sentence the young lady just told him.

"Well... we haven't stopped for more than a decade." She paused again to let it sink in for Robin. She eyed him carefully, for if he became unstable with the answers to his questions, she would have to give him a different tea to sip. "You live on this train. You used to work on this train until you were 57 years old, about fourteen years ago."

Robin held his teacup in his hands, eyeing the moving liquid as the train chugged on. "I do remember I was a conductor for the railroad. I didn't know it has been fourteen years though." Robin paused and thought for a moment. He looked up at the young lady more puzzled than when had first awoken, "where is my family?"

The young lady's and Robin's eyes connected and she knew she would have to give him the other tea. She spoke slowly, knowing the old man would not take the answer well. "You don't have a family, Mr. Nielsen."

"What?! What are you talking about?! Yes I do! I have a son and a grandson! About that boy's age that was here before you came back with the tea!"

"I'm sorry Mr. Nielsen, there was no boy here, there is no one else on this train." The young lady kept her voice steady while her hand reached for the pitcher of tea sitting on the table. It was a different tea than the tea inside Robin's cup. "You've been an engineer your whole life, this is your train. About 15 years ago you had a stroke, and became unable to continue working for the railroad." She was hoping the little shots of truth would help him remember certain memories but her words were falling on a confused, demented mind of an aging man.

Robin's head was beginning to spin from the confusion. The little boy he had pictured in his mind, the little boy he was talking with minutes ago, a train that never stops, and a stroke he supposedly had more than a decade ago?! Nothing was making sense. Robin felt like he couldn't grasp his reality because how could he so vividly remember some things and not others?

"Mr. Nielsen?" The young lady tried to bring the old man's attention back to her. "Why don't you have another sip of your tea? Perhaps it'll help calm you a little, to gather your thoughts." She poured the tea from the pitcher into Robin's cup.

Robin looked at the cup and saw that it had been refilled. He needed to calm down, he needed his thoughts to stop spinning around so fast in his mind. He took a sip and let the warmth of the tea fill him. He looked up at the young lady, thinking of what his next question should be to help cease the mess in his mind. "A stroke?" he whispered. The young lady said nothing but nodded with small, understanding smile.

Robin looked out the window to the world passing him by. The scenery had changed more since he had awoken. They were now passing the snow-capped mountain range and a river that ran close to the railroad tracks the train was traveling on. He looked on for quite a while, long enough that the young lady removed herself from the seat and existed into the other car ahead of them.

"Captain?" The young lady called out inquisitively as she made her way closer to the engine room.

"Sara." A gruffly voice called back. The Captain used to be a conductor and Robin's best friend of 30 years, since they were in college. When Robin had his stroke, his memory started to dissolve and the Captain was the one to take over his care. Eventually, convincing Robin he was no longer allowed to work with the railroad because he couldn't remember things became too much for the company, Robin, and his friend. That's when the Captain made the decision to take over a baggage passenger train as an engineer, and to take Robin, himself, and his niece across the Trans-Siberian Railroad. It was the only thing better than putting Robin into a facility. The Captain thought those places as too inhumane for old souls.

"I gave him the tea. He's calming and should be back to sleep soon." Sara and Captain were discussing the many things they'd seen and wanted to see again when they arrived to North Korea when Robin had first awaken. Had Sara noticed sooner, she would have arrived to Robin before he started his search for why he was on this train. Sara was great at creating stories of reasons for Robin to be able to enjoy the train ride rather than wonder where he was going or why he was sitting as a passenger on the train.

"Good." The Captain's voice sounded sad yet relieved. "Let him be. He seems to be enjoying the mountain views." The Captain looked from a monitor screen that was live recording the car the old man was sitting in, to the mountains looming from one window to the next. It was indeed a wonderful view to take in as the train chugged along the tracks to nowhere and everywhere, and it would always be a brand new view to an engine operator who lost control of the most important train he ever operated- his own mind.