MIDNIGHT TRAIN

THE MIDNIGHT TRAIN.

Going from somewhere, going nowhere.

Hello pleased to meet you. My name is Hans, yes Hans, you know, that nondescript figure in a grey suit that occupies your mind for a full nano second on the subway or on the street corner as we all bustle and crowd our way to earn a salary. I guess in Japan I would be called a salaryman which is what they call the millions of grey clad worker ants who toil in the huge breathing body of Tokyo..Anyway once again my name is Hans, an extremely ordinary German man with narrow features and if you look carefully a shade of a haunting in my spectacled eyes.. I have a sister called Greta, or at least I had a sister called Greta before she was whisked off to Monaco by a Armani suit with a man inside driving a Ferrari. She now lives amongst the Casinos and palaces and no doubt thinks of me from time to time whilst rattling her jewellery. Yet every year on a certain day she phones me. A special phone call, not a catch up phone call, not a gossip phone call, and definently not a boring gotta phone brother as I haven’t spoken or thought about him for a while phone call. No it is a comfort call, a call that brings back a night many years ago, a night that wraps itself around us still and once again we are scared little kids. Kids who, one dark moonlit night were confronted by something ancient, active and indescribably evil. So after so many years of my brain mind pumping a dumbbell of horror it is time to put it down, get rid of it and walk away from it. It will always be there on the floor but no longer picked up and exercised as a weight that brings no gain, only slow trickling black rain.

Greta and I were raised on a farm, deep in the beautiful Bavarian countryside. Surrounded by forests and mountains, imperious and mighty gazing down on streams gurgling with delight. Our parents resembled those far off mountains, solid, dependable and full of love. Farming life was hard with loads of chores but Greta and I worked with a sense of scope and breadth that only kids who are raised in the open country can feel. Every night after a day on the farm making sure the other members of our farm, the sheep goats and cows were happy and productive we would have our supper then sit on the porch overlooking our small kingdom, watching the sun hand the stage over to the moon and its supporting cast of stars. Father would tell a story. Sometimes dark tales of the North with dark forests, deep gorges, mountains like decaying teeth, though most times it was German folk tales, nursery rhymes that brought a smile and a laugh from the two enraptures enthralled kids.

Germany was at war of that we knew. A far off war, all started by a strange little man who looked like an accountant in some back office somewhere hidden by a the grey walls of a back street bank. Yet his words vibrated with an awesome hypnotic power, his body possessed by something other than human and his eyes burned with a cold power that was devoid of any humanity. We occasionally heard planes flying overhead and sometimes a faint far off rumble but otherwise the sun drew water everyday, our animals chewed contendedly and our lives ticked over comfortably.

All that changed however one bright morning. Greta and I were in the bedroom upstairs, Mom and Dad were doing some late afternoon gardening . We all stopped and stared down the narrow dirt road that feeds our farm as an ominous growl sauntered through the air. Like a sleek black shark a huge limousine, flanked by two outriders on motorbikes ate up our driveway and swam to a stop in front of my suddenly-pale parents. Like a cadavers jaw falling open the car door swung out and a apparition stepped out. Dressed in the darkest black with a jawline resembling an open blade and with eyes with as much expression as an oil-slick he surveyed my now scared father like a new an interesting insect. He started talking, I do now know what he said but after what seemed like an age he stopped, drilled holes in my fathers heart with his eyes , then suddenly looked up, straight into the eyes of two scared kids at the window. The face cracked a smile and a scare crow wave froze our blood. Suddenly he spun around and disappeared back into the sleek black shark that burst into a low growl. The two outriders like fish following a whale simultaneously gunned their motorbikes and with a swirl of dust and crunching tyres the shark cruised back down the road looking for something to murder.

Dad was silent, Mother was in tears and holding us in their arms told us something strange..Right on the farthest border of our farm deep inside a dark forest there was an old unused railway track coming from somewhere going nowhere. Apparently an old supply route, anyway we were warned never to go down there as from now ,it was ”verboten” out of bounds and the penalties would be severe..

So life carried on, the war grumbled in the distance and life on the farm ticked over in the usual farmer time.

Then one night things changed, Greta and I were lying in our beds, unable to sleep. It was late with that baited breath atmosphere of deep dark night. Suddenly we heard a sound, the sound of a train, a new sound but a sound that sounded like old bones being rattled together as it increased in volume though still far away as it swelled to compete with the crickets, then like a dying breath faded away into the night..We were disturbed, there was something about that sound, no whistles, no hooting or steam, just a strange clacking metallic sound like an executioner sharpening his blade..

This happened a few times a week and each time it was the same ,the far-off slowly increasing then slowly decreasing sound of a dead train coming from somewhere going nowhere. I asked Dad about it one day but he just turned pale made me swear never to go down there.

It was about this time the dreams started. In it I saw a huge chimney against the night sky, roaring and belching flames and smoke. In an orange glow a long line of people, men, women and children shuffling forward into a black doorway hour after hour, minute after minute but not coming out again. Suddenly the black scare-crow figure of the man in the car danced in front of me like a uniformed demented marionette cackling and holding a tin, shaking it in my face he opened the lid and inside I saw bones writhing inside like worms, whilst behind him the procession of people carried on and on, into the black doorway and not coming out, coming from somewhere going nowhere….As the smoke belched and the flames roared into a night sky

With a yelp I awoke, Greta was shaking me and the moon gazed through the window. Shaking I cried and held her tightly.

This happened almost every night and we both knew it was something to do with that new sound, that sound emanating from the forest late at night, the sound of rattling bones. So, against all our instincts and fear of parental wrath we decided to investigate.

Silence, the crickets had started their symphony hours ago. Mum and Dad were fast asleep down the hallway, Greta and I by the open window silence. Slowly we eased ourselves onto the ledge outside and dropped soundlessly onto the grass below. We froze as one of our sheep seeing us gave a plaintive bleat, but still the night bore down with silence. Holding hands we set off. We planned to be at the railway line a few minutes before that sound began which was about midnight..The forest was a dark cathedral as we walked down the aisle of a deer track. A owl screeched sending a sparkling shiver down my spine, sounding like an accusation almost.. Then after what seemed like an age we arrived.The railway line glistened like a silvery snake in the moonlight as suddenly a light breeze made the leaves whisper to each other in a hastened conversation. Then we heard it, bones clacking against each other in the distance as suddenly the silvery tracks started to hum. Then we saw it a flash through the trees in the distance coming closer, ever closer. Fearful yet breathless with anticipation I grabbed Greta and we stepped back, away from the tracks, the hum was now a scream as with a rush of an avalanche the huge steel monster bore down on us. The change was terrific, where once was just trees, peace and moonlight was now filled with a huge cathedral sound coupled with screams of steam and screaming wheels. With a blast of monolithic steel the engine roared past us to be replaced by the comparative whisper of the carriages and that is when we saw the faces.

I know that the eyes are the windows of the soul and that our face mirrors the universe but what we saw was a vision of hell. Hundreds of faces peered out from glaring windows. Hopeless, terrified, staring at an outside world that was no longer theirs and soon to be snatched away. All at once the dream came back, a belching chimney, a dancing cadaver and I knew, I knew with a leaden certainty that sank like a dose of mercury down my soul. With a scream of knowledge and terror I turned and ran, through the trees, away from those pale despairing faces, away from this new reality, away from that screeching sound of steel and stolen lives..away,,away.. Out of breath and in view of our farmhouse in the distance I stopped and was surprised to see Greta next to me as out of shape as I was and just as terrified. We hugged each other as the sound of hell receded into the distance

We sneaked back into the garden and climbed softly back into our bedroom accompanied by the soft snores of our sleeping parents..

We sat staring at the moonlight whose face did not look so innocent anymore, the crickets symphony was now rather mooted and somewhere in my mind they had changed to a minor key.

I did not know the details about what was happening but I guess our childlike innocence was informed by the universe albeit in a very careful way what the situation was and I guess that the magnitude of the crime was so great and ongoing that not even children and innocence was exempt from the knowledge of its existence.

Sitting on our bed we knew ,by God we knew.

We never spoke of that night again even when as regular as clockwork the bones would begin rattling far away at the same time on that railway line far away.

The war came and went, we saw strange men in foreign uniforms trudging up the road and often they stopped for a drink of water and a chat with our parents. They spoke of their homes, of far away lands and huge mountains. Then on the radio it was all over Mum and Dad danced for joy and I got the feeling of a global upwelling of relief and happiness.. I went to Berlin eventually and helped with the restoration of our country. Greta did the same and our lives carried on.

Anyway that’s my story, just me “Hans” a grey businessman on the street coming from somewhere, going nowhere with his own life and story to tell. But with a secret, a burden if you will. Of a cold moonlit night many years ago. When innocence and reality collided. When evil was comprehended by a mind to small to actually process it and a warning that is too profound ever to be ignored or allowed to happen again.

That’s me now Goodbye.

Hans.