The Line

Welcome to the line – we are proud of each and every one of you aboard The Line and your hard efforts towards the delivery of what we at The Line do to keeps things on Earth happy and comfortable. We are proud of you and thank you for ‘choosing’ to be aboard. Stay happy and comfortable.

The shrill announcement woke me. When I first heard it, I thought it was just a part of my dream and at first it was a distant echo. I realised it was someone who was actually talking over a staticky PA system when I opened my eyes, which were sticky and uncomfortable. Almost like I had been sleeping in a hot un-airconditioned room and had had no water.

The room was weird, and I didn’t recognise it. I felt uneasy as soon as I saw the horrible yellow wall, which I realised at some point must have been a more pleasant bright colour but had become faded over time. I had the horrible feeling in my hands and feet of panic as you do when you wake up somewhere in the middle of the night and you’re not quite sure where you are.

“Where am I?” I asked myself, looking around the small room.

It felt uncomfortably close, like the walls were leaning over me, like I was squeezed in a room too small for anyone to be comfortable in.

There was a sort of ‘window’ on one of the walls, but on the inside of the frame was just a drawing and a light to make it look real…it wasn’t. It was obvious that it wasn’t, there was even a faint sound, on a loop, of poorly recorded wind and birds. The whole thing must have been three or maybe five seconds. I had only been awake maybe two minutes and it was already making me irritated, making me want to grind my teeth, dig my nails into the palms of my hands. All I wanted to do was get out of there and find out where the hell I was.

Standing up off the bed itself was hard, there was nowhere near enough room to stand with your feet side by side. Instead, I had to shuffle to what I thought was the door; it was so small in width it looked more like an oversized letterbox tipped on its side to stand vertically.

Even though I had to squeeze myself through the ridiculous excuse for a door, having to suck my stomach in to get out, I was relieved to be out of the suffocating room, not to mention that antagonising recording.

The same yellow walls followed me outside into a hall, along with the pale lights that were stuck to the ceiling. Though as I looked, the hall felt like it was moving, making me feel dizzy. It wasn’t until then as I listened to the sound around me; a sort of rumble, I realised I was on a train and the carriage was bouncing up and down as it moved along the tracks.

“Ticket please Sir,” someone said sharply from behind me.

I jumped out of my skin and turned around feeling irritated, I didn’t know who the hell they were but the way they said ticket made by blood boil and I could feel the annoyance in the back of my neck.

“Do you have a ticket Sir?” he asked again leaning in insistently and looking me in the eyes. He was far too close, and I hated it, so I leaned back away from him. Trying to make it obvious that he was too close as I raised my eyebrows and answered him.

“Ticket? What ticket?” I said before thinking of a more urgent question I needed answering, “where even am I?”

The man seemed to think I was making some sort of joke and didn’t even acknowledge my clear cues that I was uncomfortable with his lack of boundaries of personal space.

“Why sir this is The Line,” he said, like I should know, like it was obvious.

“This is The Line, where everybody resides, where people laugh and play, work, sleep and eat together.”

The way he talked about it was like it was some great heavenly place, but looking at his scraggy old blue uniform, which was falling apart, if he worked for them then they were a pretty shitty place to work for.

I had nothing to say as a comeback, leaving him to stare at me as he stood what seemed to be happily in the middle of the carriageway. Meanwhile I was holding on to the wall as the thing moved up and down along the tracks trying not to think about the bobbing up and down, so I wasn’t sick. I had no idea where a bathroom was.

“Right either show me your ticket or get to bloody work!”

I frowned at him still confused. He wasn’t joking at all; he was completely serious.

“Tell me again what The Line is,” I said, still having no clue where I was.

The man scoffed with an unamused smirk on his face.

“Alright mister funny man, come on,” he said, grabbing my arm and pulling me along.

I tried to pull away but then I had a horrible thought - I had no idea where I was or who these people were. I had already upset the first person I had met. I didn’t want to be making any enemies, what with having no idea what kind of people there were aboard this train.

I was dragged down the hall which seemed to be keep going and going, passing so many rooms like the one I had been in I couldn’t even count, until we reached a door.

The ticket collector whatever his name was didn’t take me through the door that we reached, he instead gave me a sour look and pushed me through and closed the door behind me as he stared through the glass.

There were no yellow walls, but it wasn’t any better. Instead of an ill-looking wall with paper or paint, it was metal, including pipes and vents all around. And it was hot, so hot that I could feel the sweat building up already under my fringe between my forehead and scalp. I couldn’t see anyone right away through the darkness of the room, but then I saw a couple dark figures further down moving methodically not talking to each other.

“Hello?” I called out, but they didn’t seem to hear me or care to answer.

I hate it when people take too long to answer. Is it so hard to just answer a damn question right away, especially such a simple one like hello?

I sighed really loudly, hoping they would hear me, as I walked closer with loud footsteps. They seemed quite big as I got closer and I slowed down, remembering that I probably wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I didn’t want to upset anyone, especially not these big strangers in the dark.

“Hey, can you help me?” I asked one of them.

They were sitting on the ground looking at some kind of sheet as they were switching some kind of hose from one pipe after another in a specific order, one after the other.

“Can you tell me where I am? I’m a little lost.”

“Stop talking,” one of the other strangers said from behind the one I had started talking to.

I looked at them and they were looking at me like I was some kind of farm animal that had been spotted in the middle of a busy city, like a cow or sheep. Something that didn’t belong there.

“You’re not joking, are you?” they asked, with a suspicious squint.

I looked behind me remembering the ticket person thinking I was some sort of clown.

“No, not really,” I said. “Some ticket collector said something similar, he thought I was joking and gave me some speech about a great line.”

“The Line,” they said to correct me, though it wasn’t like they were defending it, it was just a correction.

There was an awkward silence after that, I kept looking at them like they were going to elaborate but nothing came out.

“Is everything alright?” I asked. They seemed to be struggling, like they were confused and couldn’t figure something out.

“You don’t make sense,” they said. “You clearly aren’t from here, but you can’t be from out there either.”

Now I was the one frowning and confused, “What do you mean from out there?” I asked.

“From outside The Line… on Earth.”

I smirked smugly and chuckled, “What do you mean, we’re not on Earth?”

“No, we’re on Earth… at least The Line is.”

Now I was starting to get more and more annoyed. “What do you mean The Line is? And why does everybody keeping talking about The Line like it’s some kind of ominous place ruled by gods?”

“The Line serves us, it gives us our home, heat and cold through the hot and cold lands as we need it, we’re safe and fed. We can wander as we need, all it costs is a little work.”

This person was starting to sound almost as bad as the ticket guy.

“And what are you working on?” I asked. “This is a train right? Where is it going?”

My questions were making them visibly uncomfortable as they kept looking to the door near to their right over and over. The first stranger I had spoken to behind me was clearly getting more and more annoyed too, grumbling under his breath.

“The Line is what keeps the earth alive, if The Line stops, then the Earth stops turning.”

Now it was starting to sound like they were playing some kind of joke.

“Wait… so you’re telling me this train is what’s making the Earth spin, liker a record?”

Just as they nodded there was sound kind of like steam or gas releasing as the door to their right opened.

The one that had been talking to me gasped and turned around quickly, leaving me standing in the middle of this walkway by myself. Standing out even more than I already had been.

I was starting to see what they had been talking about, looking at my clothes, I was clearly not where I should have been, I was dressed completely different to these people working either side of me.

The person that came through was much like the ticket person, they even looked like them. The same haircut and even had a uniform, though this one was falling apart a little less.

They marched directly towards me looking left and right systematically, nodding at each person and tapping their thumb on the side of their leg as they passed each one.

I didn’t move an inch. “Maybe I can get some answers out of this person?” I said to myself.

“Hey,” I said taking one step forward as I raised one hand at them, sort of like a wave.

They seemed so shocked that I dared speak; the stranger I had been speaking to froze, as did the other workers when I called out and the one marching towards me looked up like some sort of crime had been committed.

Their face turned from shock to frowned anger as they hastened their march until they were stood at my feet, their old nose was nearly touching mine.

“What on earth are you doing?” they asked. “Who do you think you are?”

The thing was, they had a valid point. I was so busy trying to find out where I was and asking people questions, I hadn’t asked myself any. I couldn’t think who the hell I was; I was panicking. My heart felt like it was thumping harder and harder in my chest as I became short of breath.

The old person in front of me wanted an answer and they were cross, scowling at me. I had no idea what it was, but they started to pull something from behind them.

“Sir… uh, maybe a check on them would be wise? If they are from somewhere like The Main Line, they’re not used to the heat and the bouncing rail cars down here. They could have hit their head. They don’t seem to have any idea of what’s going on around them.” The stranger I had been speaking to spoke out with some sort of defence on my part. Though it would have been useful if they had given me a little warning that some power-hungry officer type was going to march in and interrogate me.

The old person looked at them and back at me before speaking back to them. “Don’t you think that’s what I was going to do?” they said. “And did you speak to them? Didn’t you think you should have called me immediately? If service is disrupted because of you…”

“Please, it’s my fault. I insisted they talk to me.”

The old one turned back to me with their scowling face and reached for a little leather pocket on the side of their belt, a completely different place to where they were originally reaching. They clearly had other ideas before.

I don’t know what it was, but it was some sort of scanning thing they had to wind an aerial out of and click a button. It looked like a little old radio on the console, but the device scanned me with a visible blue ray.

The thing beeped right away, which for some reason seemed to shock the person. They had looked up at me as it scanned as if there would be some sort of wait. I had no idea if that was bad or good. My immediate thought was, I have no ticket, I’m not meant to be here. Maybe that machine thinks I’m some sort of stowaway.

They raised their eyebrows when they looked at the device and looked at me as they hid the machine down by their side.

“Thank you 42,” they said, addressing the stranger that had defended me.

They stood aside and pointed me towards the door. I was still so confused, what did they see on the screen and where were they taking me?

“Uh… where are we going?” I asked them.

As I asked, I looked at their face as I waited for an answer and I saw something, they had a smile. It was unnatural, it looked wrong and out of place. Like me.

“Just one moment. Please, this way.”

I didn’t know whether to feel scared or relieved, the tension I could see in the person who was apparently ‘42’, seemed to have disappeared. I could at least take that as a good sign.

I did as they asked and walked ahead of them towards the door which opened before I got to it, showing a much nicer lit walkway.

They didn’t speak to me until they closed the door behind me.

“I’m so sorry for that. Welcome,” they said.

I had no idea what was going on.

“What do you mean ‘welcome’? Do you know who I am?” I asked. They must have seen something on their screen to start showing me the slightest bit of respect.

“You’re a passenger, a new one,” they said surprised as they looked back at the device.

I wasn’t sure why that was a surprise.

“It’s been a while since we’ve had a new passenger,” they said as they lead me on further down the hall ahead of us.

I had no idea what I was doing on this train, but somehow, I was supposed to be here, even though I had no ticket.

“When was the last time you had a new passenger?” I asked. It seems like it should be a fairly regular occurrence on a train, though this train was clearly very different to all others.

“Oh… it must have been at least back when my daddy was doing my job.”

Why had it been so long I wondered, though if it had really been that long, the way my arrival had been handled sort of made sense.

After what felt like a walk that would never end, we finally reached an office. The last five minutes before it was a much nicer area than anywhere I had seen. Like we had walked into a private estate for the rich, but on a train.

The office looked abandoned; it was dark, dusty. This guy had said they hadn’t had a new passenger for years, still… someone was manning the office I was brought to.

“Come in,” someone said as the person who had dragged me here knocked on the door.

They opened the door and took off their hat as they spoke to the other old person in the office.

“Hi… uhh, bit of a strange one I suppose. We’ve got a new passenger.”

The old man behind the desk had a hard frown as he held a cup of drink close to his mouth.

“That’s strange, I thought you were delivering lunch,” they said. “A new passenger you say?”

I was pushed through the door as the one behind the desk walked over putting on his glasses, “Let’s have a look at it.”

“It?” I said, they were looking at me like I was some kind of attraction.

They looked at each other for a moment whispering before they looked at me and back at each other, chuckled with one another and then the one that found me left.

“Right then, let’s see about getting you checked in.”

“Checked in?” I asked, hoping soon I might be given some actual useful information.

The old man walked over to a cabinet of draws near his desk and pulled out one, giving a lot of effort as it seemed to be stiff. It obviously hadn’t been opened in a really long time.

After about a minute, they had made a pile of papers, a folder and had a small stack of what seemed like tickets.

“Okay, so we got you your permit to live, your induction pack, some complimentary tickets, you’ll have to be sparing with those until you get your work placement and get your first pay.”

“Wait, permit to live, work placement, hold on a minute.”

He looked back at me with another estranged look, confused at why I was questioning the whole thing.

“Don’t worry, you’ll be guided through everything during the five-day induction course,” then he paused. “Though I don’t know who would run that now, huh.”

He stood there staring into space for a minute like he was searching his old brain to figure out what to do next.

“What am I doing here? Before you go giving me some permit for the privilege to live here and some job, you need to find out how I got on this damn train,”

The old man just smiled, “Come on, you’re on The Line, you’re lucky to be here, the first in over fifty years, you truly are special and privileged to be chosen.”

I sighed and clenched my fists in anger, I almost lost it with the old man.

“Look, I don’t want a job, I want to get off.”

The man’s frown returned, “You need a job, everyone’s got one.”

“What about the people that can’t work?”

Now the old man chuckled loudly, he was truly amused.

“Everyone can work, and… when you are make sure for the first five years you’re not sick, if you are you have to make sure you tell your boss why you’re sick. Also, for those five years you’ll get the standard amount of tickets, until after the fifth year, when you’ll get a whole extra ticket per year.”

For a moment I thought he was trying to make a joke.

“A whole ticket extra a year?” I asked with a sarcastic smile, the old timer wasn’t joking. “Tell me, what are the tickets for?”

Now he just looked at me like I was stupid.

“Well it’s obvious, tickets are for everything. Food, water, when you want to stop work and go home, for breaks, everything. With tickets you can do anything.”

The more this man spoke the more I was getting impatient, angered and wanting to get off this damn train.

“So you’re telling me if I’m on this train and I want to go to bed, take a break or even eat, I need some kind of ticket?”

This time it was an outright laugh. “Of course, nothing’s free.”

I closed my eyes and said, “Just get me off this train.”

Finally, he actually seemed to realise that I wasn’t joking or just being stupid. Still he had a slight smirk like I was asking for something impossible.

“You can’t, the train doesn’t stop. It can’t stop.”

I started to panic again; I could tell by the look on his face he was being serious. I looked at him for almost a minute before I looked at the stack of tickets he called complimentary and grabbed them, bolting for the door.

“Wait!” he said behind me as I ran.

There was no one outside, just the dull unlit hallway and old unloved dusty carpet. I had no idea where I was going, no idea what to do or what I even planned to do with these tickets.

While I was stuck in my own head thinking about what to do, someone had been blabbering over the PA system making an announcement. I had no idea what they had said but it gave me an idea.

“I can make the train stop, if people stop working it’ll stop even if there is no brake or stations, if it slows down enough, I can get off.”

I looked at the speaker on the wall where the announcements came from, grinding my teeth as I tried to think hard where the announcements could be coming from, and how I could get access to it. I needed to speak to the others on board, the workers, the ones tricked into thinking they weren’t slaves.

Something clicked and my eyes snapped to the cable that ran along the wall to the PA speaker. I had to follow it. If I did, I should find where they’re coming from.

Nobody except for maybe three people on this train had any idea who I was; even I couldn’t remember. Still, somehow when I got my hands on the mic, I needed to convince everyone on board to stop working and to make the train stop.

I tried as hard as I could not to look suspicious and not to run as I followed the wire on the wall, passing another speaker one after the other. For all I knew I should have gone left, the wire went both right and left. For whatever reason I immediately went the other way. More than once I stopped, wondering if I should turn around and go back, wondering if the office was only a short walk away if I had gone the other way.

Then I saw it. The cable trailed off into a wall that was joined by lots of other cables into one big hole, and a door next to it. There was a small window and nobody seemed to be in there, there was what looked like tall computers with lots of flashing lights and recorders. Which suddenly made me realise that the announcements were recorded. At least most of them were. I had started to feel a sick knot of anxiety in my stomach, and I worried there wouldn’t be any way for me to manually speak through to everyone on board, when suddenly I saw it. A shiny chrome microphone standing in the middle of a desk. I hurried to the door handle to twist the door open and the handle didn’t move. There was a slot next to the door with the words reading insert ticket above it. I thought there was no way I had a ticket that could get me in here; there would only be specific people with clearance that could get it this room.

I could feel the tension building up in my neck as I gripped the tickets tightly in my hand, twisting them ready to bite and tear them or just rip them in half with my hands and throw them on the ground. I stared at them, trying to decide what to do when I noticed it. Next to the words complimentary ticket: non-transferrable. It said, “Tour access”.

I decided to test my luck, holding my breath to see if just maybe that this room would have been included on some kind of tour where I could get inside. But as I pushed the ticket to the hole in the wall, it spat the ticket back out straight away followed by a small flashing yellow light, indicating something was wrong. The ticket was crumpled, no longer its fresh straight and smooth material.

“Damn it!” I said hitting my fist on the wall. I had gotten myself so worked up with anger and without thinking I had screwed the ticket up, making it unusable.

At least that how it seemed, but I wasn’t giving up. I took out the rest of the tickets and picked the one that looked in the best shape and tried smoothing it out on my leg, on the corner of a wall, and then finally ironing it with my fist on the carpeted floor.

I held my breath again as I put it back into the feeder, waiting for the same yellow light as it sucked the ticket in, expecting it to be spat back out. A grinding noise followed instead, and then a green light, and finally a buzz as the door unlocked and I pushed my way through.

It was so hot in that room I could barely stand it. There were computer racks all around buzzing and beeping away. I grabbed the mic, swooping it with my hand and placing my thumb down on the button ready to press it. I froze, trying to think what to say. I didn’t know these people; I didn’t know how to talk to them. The only person I could think of as an example was 42. I needed to speak to him as well as everybody else.

I clicked it. The button stayed down with a single press and there was a high-pitched tone that lasted a couple seconds before I was free to speak.

“Nobody knows me, I don’t know me, I’m a new passenger on board, the first in fifty years… or so I’ve been told. I can’t stay here, and neither should any of you. This place isn’t a paradise, it’s not even a home. They’ve tricked you into thinking you’re free and you can do what you want. The truth is… you can’t. They give you no rights as a human, they make you work, eat, sleep, work and repeat the same thing all over again, making you think that’s normal while barely giving you anything back. Like it’s a reward to live and be happy. You all need to stop working now, this train may not have any stops or brakes. But we have to put a brake on the work and stop this train, no matter how long it takes. If the train’s engines stop running and the workers stop running them, we’ll eventually come to a halt. We can all be free.”

All I could hear after a long speech was the static over the speakers; I could barely recall what I had just said. I was waiting for something to happen, maybe someone to speak back, but nobody did. Instead, there was a rush of people in dark new uniforms that rushed through the doors with threatening and violent looks, ready to beat or arrest me.

As they burst through the door and got just a few feet away from me the train jolted. The engines were stopping.