The Ringbearer Express

Whatever results from the following events, I am responsible for them. I wouldn’t have said such things an hour ago, but I’ve aged much in that hour.

I woke up on a bed with silky red sheets on a train. The other details came slowly to me in that special way that details come when you first wake up somewhere unfamiliar. The golden glow of lightbulbs, the slight itch of cotton in the mattress, the gentle gallop of wheels against wood, and the distant hum of a horn.

I sat straight and rubbed my head, noting with chagrin that I wasn’t in pajamas. Apparently, I’d drifted off quickly. My suit was rumpled, my pince-nez was still on, and I hadn’t even bothered to take off my tie. I turned to the windowsill. My hand thumped on a cocktail glass. I fumbled in surprise, managing to catch the flute before it fell onto a piece of paper with a logo informing me that I was on the Ringbearer Express. I chuckled to myself. That explained my drowsiness.

I looked out the window. The sky was a black haze of clouds backlit by a full moon, creating a small dimple of pale light.

“Attention, passengers. We will be arriving at our destination in one hour. Try to relax in the meantime. Perhaps have a quick meal at the dining car.”

I squinted. What time was it? I felt at my coat pocket. There was a small round lump. A pocket watch. I pulled it out and opened it. The hour hand pointed toward a fantastically ornate number 3 and the minute hand pointed rigidly upward, forming an L. 3 o’clock sharp. An odd hour at which to wake up.

Ah, well. I felt my lips smack. Perhaps I’d take the conductor’s advice. A club soda would make the trip a bit easier. Grunting to my feet, I stepped out of bed and faced the rest of the sleeping car, a large box with red-clad beds packed neatly into the walls. I walked in one direction. Surely the dining car wasn’t too far. It was… no, I’d been going the wrong way. I doubled back. No, was it this way? Ah, yes, yes; this was the way. Wasn’t it? There I stayed, walking in bumbling circles for a few moments. This was silly. The dining car was where it had always been, which was… this way.

I found myself at the end of the long hallway, faced with a door to the next car. I peered through the window. The small sign plate on the opposite door read “Baggage Car.” No, no, no, the dining car was the other way.

I fumbled my way through three more cars. At last, here we were. A small room flanked by rows and rows of strong-looking, leather-bound chairs, and tablecloths as white and delicate as the petals of the bouquet of roses centering each table, bursting like icy fireworks from the crystal vase. I sat at the table closest to me and stared at the frozen explosion, enjoying the rhythmic sound of the train’s wheels skipping over the tracks, struggling gently against the rails.

Chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug…

For just a moment, I forgot about my thirst, lost in the bliss of the quiet.

Quiet?

It was quiet, wasn’t it? Yes, yes, it was. I looked at the table in front of me. It was empty. So was the table beside me. And the table beside that one. Save for me, the whole car was void of life. I fidgeted with the tablecloth a bit, persuading my mind to think. Surely I wasn’t the only one awake. Surely someone on this train would have heard. So why was I alone?

Oh, well. No need to trouble myself about it too much. I picked up the menu. A slip of white fluttered out of it. A cocktail napkin. With… writing?

Perhaps I’m speaking too soon, but I’ll never forget the feeling I had when I saw that small leaflet of paper. I unconsciously began holding my breath, as if… as if I were about to be struck.

I squinted at the napkin. Yes. The napkin was covered in red ink. Was it a drawing? A drawing of a lever? Yes. And it had a sign next to it, a road sign with a small dot on it.

Wait. There was more. Three words written in crimson chicken scratch on the other side. “DO NOT RELAX.”

I admit, I found myself surprised by the warning. Do not relax? Who had written this? Was… was this message on every table? Was every diner in this car being instructed not to relax? And… why?

I put a hand on my breast pocket. It thumped in response. I dug my hand into it. In my hand was a pen. I cocked my eyebrow. Could it be?... I gave it a shake. Red ink dripped out of the brass tip. It dripped onto the napkin. The inkblot was a perfect match…

Twaddle! What twaddle! If I had written this cursed message, I surely would have remembered! I was a bit drunk, a bit drunk, that was all. A quick walk was all I needed, nothing more. In the meantime, I had some choice words for whatever puerile buffoon had left this message. I was angry, and as such, I felt more important than I was. I stormed out of the car and right back to the sleeping car.

“Attention, passengers; we will be passing over the Plentiful Bridge. If you have an eye for design, ready yourself. Few get to see it this closely.”

Hot with anger, I burst into the car, ready to reprimand the first person I saw. But it didn’t come. Every booth in the long, narrow lounge was utterly empty; and what was more, they were in perfect order, as if this car were some sort of museum exhibit. So I kept looking. I scoured every bed, every chair, every nook, and every cranny in every car on this train. And then, when I was done, I looked again. I rapped at the ceiling like a fool; I crawled on the ground like an animal. I felt sweat building inside my jacket. I felt my hands begin to shake as I flung open each door. I was desperate, desperate for someone to yell at, someone to blame for my distress.

Or perhaps just to prove my own sanity. For I remembered people being here. I remember chatter and laughter and revelry and folly, such splendid folly. But now, it was gone without any explanation at all. And the only trace was a scrap of paper with the words “DO NOT RELAX” on it. And whether it was written by some prankster or somehow by my own hand, I was certainly not relaxed.

I found myself in the sitting room when my madness had subsided. I shook the poor, sweaty rag that had once been my jacket and checked my watch once more. The minute hand rested on the four. Twenty minutes I’d wasted on this folly, looking for people that weren’t there. I sat down and observed my surroundings. The car’s walls were white as pearl and speckled with golden fleurs-de-lis. I ran my thumb over one and watched it reflect the yellow light from the sconces, dutifully placed like sentries three feet apart. But even these couldn’t make me feel safe. It was like a dream. A place where I had no control. A place where logic was madness, where escape was an impossibility.

I was a rat in a maze.

“We wanted to take this time to remind you that your baggage is in the best of care-...”

My eyes snapped back into focus. I remembered the piles of suitcases stacked on top of one another. The baggage car! Yes, surely all of those knick-knacks belonged to somebody! That was where I would investigate! Surely, there I would find answers!

Chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug…

Like a starving dog, I bounded toward the dusty room and burst through the door. So many suitcases, satchels, boxes; they were like bricks in an enormous wall. I didn’t care. I would tear it down, all of it, even if it killed me. I reached for the top case, a black, leather-bound one bearing the initials G.M.B., and threw it to the ground. It cracked open like an egg. I began rifling through the papers—all useless. The next case that went was a light brown reading T.G.R.. Crack! An undershirt, some towels, nothing. Case after case, bag after bag, met the floor with hollow cracks, and their contents were flung about like confetti. But there was nothing here! Nothing! Nothing! I turned to the next case, now more beast than man. But when I read that label, I froze. The initials were scratched out of the nameplate. The marks were deep, straight; it was as if someone had taken a scalpel and meticulously scratched the plate repeatedly until the letters on it were illegible.

The feeling of bated breath returned. This was my suitcase.

Gently, apologetically, I picked the case up and hauled it into the sitting car. The yellow light made it come to life. It watched me, waiting like a chess master for his opponent’s next move. My fingers went to the latches and flicked them up. The hinges reared back. Inside was nothing but a newspaper and a scientific article, more philosophical than scientific, whose title was evidently, On The Nature of Time. Brushing off the latter paper as useless (what a fool I was!), I picked up the newspaper, my eyes falling to an image enclosed in a frantically drawn loop of red ink.

The picture was of a train track that forked in the middle into two paths, one with a sign reading Plentiful Bridge beside it and the other with a sign reading Respite Hills. The image came complete with an iron lever with a road sign beside it. The sketch! I snatched the napkin out of my pocket, put the two pictures beside each other, and fastened my eyes on them. They were the same kind of lever! But there was a difference. The signs were different; the one from the newspaper had an arrow instead of a dot.

Thoughtlessly, I turned the paper over to the front page. The first thing my eyes beheld was a cacophony of inky ruin. A set of gray pillars stood decapitated over a churning, white sea filled with boulders the color of ash. All the while, a lonely train track looked on in terror past its twisted, sheared rails. I felt myself gag. My breath snagged in my throat as I looked up at the headline. It read, in large black letters, “PLENTIFUL BRIDGE DESTROYED IN AVALANCHE.”

“Attention, travelers: we are now twenty minutes away from Plentiful Bridge.”

Chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug…

I looked at my watch. 3:40.

“Do be ready.”

It all hit me at once. The lever. Yes, yes! That was my salvation! I would get the conductor to stop the train; surely someone was making all these announcements! I would warn him of the danger, and he would switch the track! All I had to do was run to the engine, and this nightmare could end. So I ran. With the legs God gave me, I scrambled for the front of the train, past the sitting car, past the dining car, tearing open each door that stood in my path, until at last, I was in front of a large door with a sign reading “TRAIN ENGINE; CREW ONLY.” Overwhelmed with relief, I rapped on the door.

No one answered.

For a moment, I stood there in a dumb daze. No. No! It couldn’t be! The announcements! Someone had been saying them! The lever! I could see it in my peripheral! No more waiting, I screamed to nobody, picking up a chair and hurling it into the door until it finally gave way! I ran to the controls! I could see the lever, it was close, so close! But there was still time! Gripping the largest lever I could see, the red one with the label reading, “Emergency Brake,” and summoning the last drop of primal strength my body could muster, I heaved it down.

Nothing happened.

The lever was a prop.

The last I remember was staring helplessly at the sign and the arrow pointing to my final resting place as it passed. And when it was gone, I watched it fade into the horizon. And on the sign’s back, I didn’t see an arrow. No, I saw a white splotch, fresh paint, maybe. And it bore an uncanny resemblance to the dot I had seen in the sketch on the cocktail napkin. Whoever had drawn the sketch was drawing it from behind, an impossibility for someone who hadn’t crossed the Plentiful Bridge, which was also impossible. Therefore if it really had been drawn by me, the lone passenger of this doomed train, it would have had to have been at this moment, after I’d found the napkin. What did that mean? What, I decided, did it matter?

“Attention, passengers; we are now five minutes away from our destination. Please gather all of your belongings and prepare to exit the train.”

So now, here I sit, watching the minutes tick away until the inevitable, all because I had failed.

Tick… tick…

I had been given no less than an hour to escape this train, more than enough time to save myself from this wretched fate.

Chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug…

But what had I done with it? I had spent all of that time waiting for someone to save me, someone to tell me that this wasn’t real, looking for a bush to hide in.

Tick… tick… Chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug…

Now here I sit, in the dining car, bound by a chain with two links; the sound of galloping wheels and the sound of my ticking watch.

Tick… tick… Chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug…

I can’t help but wonder about the last moment of my life. The moment when the table would leap up and pounce on me, when the tablecloths would fly off and flutter about the room like ghosts, when the roses would finally break free of their vases with a triumphant crash as the wall became the floor…

Tick… tick… Chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug…

I was sure that brief moment before The End would be a sight to behold; one last push for everything in this train to unshackle itself. One last push to break free from the order that had kept them all in such rigid perfection.

Tick… tick… Chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug…

Perhaps that was the true purpose of this accident: to prove that this train was its own master. Maybe this is not my story at all. Perhaps this is the story of this train, the Ringbearer Express’s quest to find a place free from the set path the rails decided it should have. And perhaps Death was that grand frontier where it could be free, if only for a fleeting second. I admired the Ringbearer Express. What courage it had. And what folly, to choose death in favor of freedom.

Chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug… Tick… tick…

Wait… could that be right? To be free and risk your own existence? Was that too high a cost? Was the train’s quest folly at all?

Chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug…

Tick… tick…

Yes! The train was right! To die by your own design, to perish in pursuit of freedom. That was the noblest end! The train had made its choice, and I accepted that. But I was of a different will. I wanted to live! Even if it meant I must die trying! The railroad switch was gone, but I had a new escape plan, this one too simple to fail.

I would jump.

Tick… tick…

I walked towards the door, staggering as if drunk. I would jump.

Tick… tick…

I put a hand on the door, pushing it open. I would jump.

Tick… tick…

I watched the ground rush past me like a river. I would jump.

Chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug…

The sound of the train’s wheels against the track grew around me like the shadow of a great beast come to devour me.

Chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug…

The cliff stood at my side. The train tracks were frozen in the same writhing form I saw in the newspaper.

Chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug…

“Attention, passengers; we have arrived at our destination.”

I would jump.

Tick…

I would jump!

Tick…

I would jump!

Tick…

The last thing I knew was that I was in the air and that the Ringbearer Express and I had finally parted ways. I didn’t know how I’d ever come aboard, and I didn’t know why this was happening; but for now, at least, that wasn’t what mattered and I chose not to think about that. And whatever came of that choice would be uniquely mine; whatever happened next, I would be responsible for it.