"Train Tales"

I am sitting in the grass, relishing the bright summer Sun. My family is down by the lake, preparing to swim for the floating dock, and their laughter flows up towards me. I am laughing, too.

But it is a distant laughter; a hollow laughter. For there is a call to join them that I cannot answer.

If there truly are things that time brings no resolution to, in my story, this is chief among them. Try as I might, I cannot shake the absolute terror that has arrested me for so long. I am terrified of the calm waters; I am terrified of the treacherous deep.

As I watch on, they breach the threshold with calm surrender. Their laughter falters not a whit as they pass the halfway point, and begin to disappear, one after the other.

I try to cry out--cry out for them...to them--but not even the heat of terror can thaw my frozen expression.

Autonomous laughter is pulled from me as the last of them is pulled under, and with that I finally spring to my feet, and dash madly for the shore. With strength unsuppressed, I dive in.

As the darkness swallows my vision, I awaken, drenched in sweat. As I am jolted back to reality, I cannot stifle the gasp that accompanies me.

Yet, as the dream recedes, a far darker conundrum has anchored my attention.

An early evening countryside blurs past beyond the nearby window. But it is not one that I recognize.

How exactly did I get on this train?

I shift my attention to the man beside me. He is reading a newspaper in silence.

A tinge of contempt flares brightly as I first stare, then turn away, struggling to settle on the "right" approach. Even a hint of common courtesy would have sufficed.

"Excuse me," I say. He doesn't appear to notice. After a moment he turns the page. I eye it noncommittally.

Gah. The sports section.

"Excuse me. Sir?"

Nothing.

I reach over, intending to gently tug at his sleeve.

In a flash, he moves his arm out of reach. He proceeds to fluff his newspaper, and settle back in again. Anger gushes within me, and I glare at him openly.

I ease myself out of the seat and rise. I train my eyes forward and mark three other passengers. I make my way toward them.

It turns out the first is only a child. He is asleep. The headphones he has on appear too large upon his head. Grinning silently, I move on.

The second is an elderly woman. She is staring out the window. I dust the phrase off and try once more.

"Excuse me, ma'am," I say, a bit louder than before. It appears I have startled her; perhaps from out of a daydream. She slowly turns my way.

However, before I can speak, a deep sadness silences me. Unless I am mistaken, she is blind.

"Yes?" Her response touches me, while her eyes do not. "May I help you?"

I hesitate. She waits at attention, her face steady. As I ease my words out, her gaze adjusts in turn.

"Hi," I begin. "I'm sorry to bother you. I'm having a bit of trouble, I guess." As she looks on, my sorrow grows harder to choke back. "You see, I don't know how I got on this train. I don't even know where it is going."

She is silent for some time, then says, quite frankly, "I'm sorry, young man. I cannot help you with that." She immediately turns away, locking her sights with eerie speed upon the window.

Dumbstruck, my eyes refuse to sway. They absently probe her snowy-white mane. I open my mouth to speak, and slowly close it again.

Puzzled, I move on.

I approach the third passenger and discover nothing but a bundle of clothing, as if a fashionistic snowman has melted there. Turning back, I see the man and woman once more, silent and motionless. They may as well be statues in a museum.

I move on.

I slide the gangway door open and step through. There is some resistance at first, but it gives.

Rooms line both sides of the car. As I move past them, I steal glimpses through the unblocked windows. It comes as little surprise that they are empty.

I proceed to the next car.

There is a solitary man in this one, and I approach him reluctantly. Judging from what I can see so far, he appears to be in his mid to late 60's. As I close the distance to his seat, two things become clear. The first is that he is, indeed, around that supposed age.

As for the other...

The other is his outfit. As it unveils itself before me, I realize it is--without question--identical to the one I had seen in the first car.

That gives me pause. Questions surface like submerged buoys as instinct drives me to calculate my odds of sneaking past him. An extreme uneasiness threatens to overpower me.

I eye him cautiously as I slowly advance, planning to pass him at a steady velocity I pray is inconspicuous.

But I already know how it is going to turn out.

Just as I am about to squeak on by without a hitch, I catch my foot on something I can only assume is a seat leg and nearly go sprawling. By luck my hands land on two of the seats, and I steady myself. I turn toward the man and end up staring straight into his eyes. There is something terrible about them, but I cannot place the cause.

If I had found the will to do so, I would have simply broken my gaze and moved on. But that option was still a lifetime away, it seemed.

However, my qualms are shaken by complete surprise as a warm smile arrests his features, and a look of concern eases itself into place. "Are you alright, my dear boy? You almost took a nasty spill there."

It is not indecisiveness, but shock, that wedges the moments between my mouth and my response. "Oh. I suppose I'm okay. Yes. Yes, I'm fine. Thank you for asking."

"Yes," he replies, still smiling broadly. I feel a tinge of unease begin to spill back through as his smile remains strong, but my relief at the open communication seeks to stifle that now.

Eventually, I find myself speaking again. "Well, I'm sorry to bother you, but...this is strange for me to admit....but I don't know how I got on this train, or even where it's headed. The truth is, I woke up and found myself here. I don't remember anything else."

His smile slowly morphs into a composite of sociable understanding as he nods along to my words, but he doesn't speak.

Unsure of what to say next, I awkwardly wing the "conversation" forward. I am beginning to sweat again. Part of me prays that he doesn't notice.

"You see, I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up two cars back. I tried to ask the man sitting next to me, but he ignored me. I asked an old blind woman, too, but she said she couldn't help me for some reason. As for the third person..." I hesitate for a moment before continuing, plagued by an irrational fear of being discovered. "Well, there wasn't actually a third. There was just a bundle of clothes I mistook for someone."

He chuckles agreeably at that. My confusion deepens.

"Yes. Indeed, it is strange what is come across on trains, is it not?" His smile finds renewed vigor somehow. He continues to stare at me. Through me.

"Yes." I feel on the verge of utter doom now. "Well..yes, I suppose it is." I cannot help how shakily the words come out.

I wait. He continues to smile. I can hear his breathing becoming harder; as if he is losing patience.

"I have ridden this train many times," he said. "Since I was about your age, in fact. I'd wager you are in your early twenties? Twenty-three, perhaps?"

"Twenty-four, actually," I say.

He clicks his teeth irritably. "Ahh. Yes. What an age that was. Well, I was a lad such as yourself when I first came to ride these rails. I needed to put my training to the test and thought it presented the perfect opportunity. As the countrysides and cities flew by, I relished more and more how right I believed I had been." He sighs. "But that was then, and this is now." He lifts his hat up to reveal a balding scalp. "All that's left now is a middle-aged man with his hair in the clouds. An easy trick for a magician my age, I'd say."

I felt my cloak of unease being worn under the weight of his unsinkable smile, and found it hard to keep from smiling myself. I wasn't sure I would go so far as to call the man charming, but his mannerisms were becoming almost bewitching.

"But that's enough about me," he says, putting the spotlights of his eyes on me again. "Tell me about you, young man. What is your name?"

I have to lie. I pray my stuttering pause doesn't give me away. "It's Derek."

His eyes flicker from side to side with the speed of a snapshot, but the rest of him remains cool and composed. "Well, Derek," he begins, and reaches out his hand. "It's nice to meet you. My name's Claude. Claude Devereaux." His hand remains there, as steady as a lure. I feel an irrational fear that if I bite, it will bite back.

I muster the last of my reserve strength and brush the insistency off. "It's nice to meet you, too, Mr. Devereaux." I stand as strong as I can as the moments tick away in a slow-moving flood. Finally, he pulls his hand back, his intake of breath drawn as hard as his smile has become.

"So," he begins. "What brings you here, Derek?" Then, in a flash, his smile stretches into a grin. It is a ghastly look. "Ahh. That's right. We were already discussing that, now, weren't we? My apologies." He drops his hands so they are level with his waist, then proceeds to rub them together; slowly; ritualistically. "I suppose it's time we get to the bottom of that, don't you agree?"

No, I think to myself. No. I don't think that is such a good idea.

"Oh, come now, Derek," he says, and the words jolt through me like a spike. I am stolen over in an icy freeze as they seem to cease upon the air. "Surely you would like to get home, now, wouldn't you?"

I don't respond.

I cannot respond.

"Yes," he says with finality. "Yes, I knew you would listen to reason." He laughs, and I realize it is the first time I notice his teeth. They are even more ghastly than his smile. As if they were made not to break ice, but glass. "You see, my dear--dear boy--I know exactly how you have arrived here...and, as it were, I also know exactly how it is that you must leave." His hands continue to shuffle themselves as he gradually eases them apart. There is a light growing and shifting between his palms, and its colors ebb and flow as their spectrum hones in, becoming clear.

Suddenly, his hands slam together, snuffing the light show as if it had been not light, but a smokeless flame. He eases them apart, revealing a small key the color of muted brass. There are three teeth at its end, and as I watch, their lengths elongate and detract in erratic unison.

He shambles out of his seat and advances on me. I struggle to move away, but find my stirrings nothing more than an illusion as cold realization assures me that I am going nowhere.

"Now Derek," he reiterates. "This is for your own good. Believe me." The key comes within inches of my vision as he lifts it toward my forehead. Although I cannot follow its progress visually, I begin to feel a strange sensation growing between my eyes. There is an odd feeling that gradually threatens to steal over me. It is not quite pain or pleasure, but something involving the two. It is as if some greater potential is being unlocked.

The feeling fades quickly as the key emerges once more before me, and the man's gaze aims past it to lock with mine. "I am willing to quit playing games as long as you are willing to uphold your end of that same bargain. I shall release you from your paralysis and explain the situation to you. All I ask is that you honor our fellowship in this matter." He pauses. It is clear he could not contain the smirk that bubbles up. "Do we have a bargain...Jackson?"

I find I have room to stir as I am left to consider the question. It is a taste of freedom the Devil himself would bank on for me to cave in to his demands.

Nevertheless, I have no choice, and am left only to pray to God that I am wrong.

Yes, I confess.

Suddenly, my body buckles en masse, as if taut puppet strings have been severed, and my reflexes reignite just quickly enough for me to tip myself to balance. In moments the paralysis has become a distant memory.

The man is eyeing me sternly. I lower my gaze to his outstretched palm. The key rests there, motionless. The teeth are frozen in place.

"You must gather by now that this is no ordinary key," Claude says to me. "It's appearance may profess simplicity--perhaps even a lack of sophistication--but I assure you...it is nothing of the sort. You see...this key tailors itself specifically to its suitor. The possibilities of its precision are unfathomable, yet, it's purpose is simple. And powerful."

He pauses. I wait in silence.

"Some call it the key of dreams; others, the key of potential. However, I have always referred to it by its given nomenclature: the Laxordias contrivance." He returns to his seat and motions for me to sit down. "Do sit," he says. Then, more gently, "Please. I will explain."

With little more loyalty than a rabbit in a snare, I reluctantly oblige.

His attention is drawn to the window, and he stares out for some time.

In time he turns back to me, and smiles bashfully. "Even after all these years, these lands still take the best of me." His smile slackens for the first time as it sinks into a frown. As it falls, it is joined by yet another first: my own genuine feeling of sorrow for the man.

He waves his hands in a shooing gesture almost immediately. "Think nothing of it. I knew long ago what I was getting myself into. It's just these lands....they still hold such mystery--even for me, and even after all this time. It has always been my intention to unravel that mystery. Even if it turns out to be the last thing I ever do."

He looks back out the window for a moment, then turns resolutely toward me. He once more leverages the key within his palm, and my admiration for it is helpless to grow as he speaks.

"Long ago, there was a powerful sorcerer named Laxordias who sought to bring peace and balance to his village. He had complete and utter faith in his people, and truly believed that, even in their ordinary moments, they could fashion tools that would utterly change the world. In fact, he had bargained with his very life on the strength of that principle, bartering with beasts of unimaginable might, no less. In exchange for protecting his people, he swore to free them from their own slavery to an even more monstrous captor."

He raises the key before my eyes. "This key was but a footnote in his mythical quest. It has been said that it was entrusted to him by a comrade that had fallen along the way. Someone like you, in fact, if I am not mistaken. Someone from your world. Do forgive me for not putting a finer point on it than that. He had also come to be trapped in this dream world, but, unfortunately for him, he had died before he could find his way home once again."

"You see, this key has but one fatal flaw in its function: and that is, it demands that its possessor has no material ties or commitments to this world. Otherwise, it in essence becomes like any other key: without a lock to fit it, it is utterly useless. Until its possessor fulfills their duty to it, they are but slaves to its own immaterial destiny."

He looks at me solemnly now. "You may be asking yourself how I have come to have it in my own possession." He sighs. "I suppose there is no necessity in explaining that, or pain in admitting it, anymore. Suffice it to say, I had lost my own way home long ago. I had demanded a vision too bold to ever truly be resolved to either my--or this infernal key's--satisfaction. Workings of magic--be they white or black--can be a fine line to cross if one does not tread softly enough."

He sighs again. The hollowness in which it resonates is deeper than I could have anticipated. "As for me, I am cursed to ride these rails until I achieve that impossible satisfaction as these lands had proclaimed for me in those early days. I'll tell you this, my dear boy: any man who comes to find he has lived to speak of his own legend as if it were someone else's has been ensnared by a dark spell, indeed."

When I eye the key once more, it appears to have regained its initial fluidity. As I take in Claude's face and the solitary tear that has spilled there, his voice marches forth without tremulation. "Our bargain has been fulfilled, and I release you."

A pause.

"There is but one thing more I must ask of you. I ask it with no tie to this key, or with any touch of bounty its corruptive sheen may bely. I ask it only as a request of your own unfettered heart. My wish is simply this: that you send word to my loved ones that, against any falsehood that either you or I possess, that I am alive and well. I know not if I was one of your world, or one of another...I only ask that you send my love to them, in any way that you can. Whether such word fetches upon their doorstep, or is lost like a gust to the wind, is irrelevant. To know that there is some piece of me to be found somewhere outside of this prison is a priceless gift, indeed, and the least that I could ever ask for."

"When you awaken, you shall awaken with the knowledge of all that has come to pass between us, as well as the knowledge pertaining to my own bindless and humble request." He looks into my eyes and smiles broadly again. There is no trace of suspicion now; just a deep and unabashed sadness that nearly stirs me to my own bevy of tears. "It has been an honor to share these moments with you, my dear Jackson. I am sorry for any fret I likely have caused you, and, for what it is worth, I hope our paths cross once more someday. Perhaps on some distant shore in the paradise that is your world. Or mine."

He raises the key toward my forehead once more, and as his clasped fingers probe straight through the extents of my vision, that strange feeling comes again, riding indescribably higher than before, and his face spirals like a vivid flood down the gullet of a dark and eyeless drain.

Suddenly, I find myself plunging backwards out of a wet darkness and bursting, seemingly like a bullet,

Into the cold December atmosphere of my bedroom.

Moonlight is pouring steadily through my windows as it casts the shadows of trees upon the walls. What the moonlight does not touch remains dark, and silent.

I slowly right myself and peer around, sleepily. I listen for some time as I ponder over my dream. As the moments pass, it takes on that strange identity of life and death; of fact and fiction; of vividity and illusion.

But I know it was real.

No dream that vivid could be anything but real.

Claude Devereaux. The man's name surfaces as bright and distinct as any other's I have ever met. Bright, and distinct...and utterly undeniable.

And it is not alone.

Suddenly, there is further knowledge that introduces itself before me, like a player that has exited the wings and takes its rightful place on the stage of my mind. There is an address. And a patient ID.

I pull the blankets tightly around me as I begin to shiver.