The 444

“Here,” my sister said. “I found this.”

I looked up from sweeping to see her holding out an old school photo. We were in our third and final weekend of cleaning out Mom’s house after her passing. I should mention it never gets easier, getting rid of someone’s life. Yes, we’d gathered our memories, had our laughs and our cries, but there was never a moment where we weren’t feeling the missing. With every dish or bric-a-brac that went in the sale pile, with every piece of furniture carted to the curb, with every “Why did she hang on to this?” thrown in the bin, we knew that selling her home would only be the next waystation on the road of wishing things were different. Wishing she’d been different. Wishing we’d been different. Wishing the busyness that kept us away would have told us the truth about forgotten phone calls and forgone visits.

Wishing disease hadn’t gotten its way.

I laughed, taking the frame in hand. The glass had cleanly broken; a small triangular section was missing in the lower right. But it was still me behind the pane, knocking on the door of 18, with a hairstyle trying too hard, skin none to pleased with my diet or my changing hormones, and a smile unsure of itself. It was me before…

I confess, my instinct was to throw it away. I wasn’t that boy anymore, and those were not days I cared to remember. Nevertheless, curiosity added it to the box going home with me. I don’t have many pictures from when I was younger, and for reasons I still can’t unravel, I never bought a high school yearbook. Nor did I ever consider bringing childhood photos to my marriage. I wondered what laughs this one might induce among my grown children. And, I suppose, I wondered if that time I would rather forget needed to be remembered.

We packed up the last few boxes, not sure where they would go in our own homes. I hugged my siblings goodbye. One was headed out of state. The others had long drives ahead of them. Then it was just me and the house. I had no great attachment to it – none of us had grown up there – but it had been Mom’s last home, and for all its rundown, cluttered confusion, it had been the place she’d kept vigil over her memories and failed dreams. And I had been the last of us to see her in it. Before hospitals, and care facilities, and hospice houses. Now, it was just a bare floor and walls. Now, its contents were scattered to some combination of heirs and friends, to strangers and landfills. I drove away knowing I would never see this place again.

Escrow closed three weeks later.

A month after that, I turned 50.

Rain fell light on the platform. My train was late. For weeks, I had been trying to answer that annual question, “What do you want to do for your birthday?” From the time I was little, I rarely knew what to say. February seemed to establish a subdued landscape in my heart early on: grey days, tired eyes, a desire to be fireside at most, quiet and a little lost. I remember back when I turned 18, sitting in my old pickup outside the comic book shop. Reading and listening to the rain on the paint-peeled roof. Alone, knee-deep in a year of hurt – given and taken. Much to the dismay of my family and friends, I still think of that as one of my best birthdays. It’s not that I don’t love being with those who love me. It really isn’t. Sometimes, though, all I need is a small space with a thousand small drops upon a window. A place where I can see, but not quite. A place where the light refracts and bends the story enough, and the sound is lost in the wash of water on metal.

I looked at my phone, the glass speckled by the drizzle, the time indistinct. Regardless, the train still hadn’t shown. We’d celebrated my birthday over the weekend with a short trip up the coast, and a good dinner with the kids, but as for the day itself, it seemed I would be notching my fiftieth year the same way I’d notched so many others, a reality I was entirely at peace with. Assuming I made it to work at all.

One by one, people began wandering away from the platform. There were the head shakes and the squints down the track, the eager listenings for a rumble or a horn or the clanging of the crossing signal. None of these came. Spouses and friends were called. Cabs began to pull up and roll off. One man kept tracing his finger along the bus route placard. Why I sought none of these alternatives, I still don’t know. I suppose I was grateful for the rain – we don’t get much – but it seemed something else was keeping me there. I liked that the train was late. I liked that for just this spell, I’d be waiting.

If there’s one train I know I’ll miss, it will be the one that runs on time.

The thought struck me as the rain started to thicken. I ducked under the overhang. The temptation to look at my phone again – to check the clock, the emails, the app, the comments, the pictures, the notes – pricked my thumb. My eyes grew tired at the thought, seeing the future phantoms of word and image scroll by. The tyranny of wasted minutes took up its silent, lulling song. Rarely, had I resisted. Today, of all days, I would. I shoved my phone in my bag and closed my eyes, listening as the rain beat against the awning with a ferocity so sudden and so loud I could imagine it denting the concrete like silver buckshot.

A whistle, loud and long, distant and insistent, came from the North, cutting through the rainfall. A whistle, not a horn. Thunder shook my shelter, rattling the plexiglass ad panels on either side. I glanced at the track with its tremorous rails, then looked in the direction of the oncoming sound. I could see nothing beyond ten yards, at best. The whistle sounded again, so near, it summoned me to my feet. Without waiting, I stepped into the downpour, leaving my bag behind. Like a grey ghost taking iron form, the train roared out of the deluge then squealed to an impatient stop in front of me, its wheels throwing sparks so high, I felt them singe off my face. The engine churned and heaved anxiously to my left. Emblazoned along its side in sunrise gold were three numbers.

444.

Straight ahead of me, stood the first passenger car, with an empty cabin waiting. Away to my right the rest of the train ran out of sight. How many cars she carried, I could not count. How many people had boarded, I would never know. I stood there, soaking wet, having no sense of where she’d come from. Neither could I say where she was headed. But I was certain of this: The 444 would be the only train in the station today.

A plaintive ding sounded behind me, managing to cut through the noise of the storm and steaming metal, just barely. My thumb twitched again. I gripped it in my fingers and gave it a good crack. Then I opened the door and stepped aboard.

It closed with a sound-muffling click. The rain still beat away outside, but within I felt the sureness of old and earnest craftmanship – thick wooden walls, laquered against wear, glass and brass of imminent care, and the smell of oiled leather. I stood for a moment, unsure of whether I ought to sit, drenched and dripping as I was. I stripped off my coat and hung it on the brass door hook. Feeling altogether foolish, but at the same time, compelled, I took my seat, facing the front. Like a wild hart, the train leapt forward, throwing me back.

How many miles flew by at that breakneck speed, I cannot recall. Nor could I see much else outside except the grey blur of cloud doused hills punctuated by the occasional dark swath of scrub or a series of leafless trees. I looked down at my boots, glad that I had chosen waterproofs, but my jeans were soaked clean through, and now a pang of embarrassment hit, as I noticed the puddle forming where I sat. My hair and shirt both draped miserably on me. Yet, on we hurtled, and before long, I felt warmth again. The rain slid unbothered over the glass outside, while within, the lamplight shivered gentle in its glass tubing. Womblike, the car listed and leaned in time, as heat from the engine seemed to roll back to my cabin in subtle waves.

I don’t remember ever feeling dry again that day, but somewhere in those long, racing, rocking whileaways, I found myself ready, indeed eager, to move about. It was then, and only then, I heard a knock at the interior cabin door.

It startled me, I confess. I don’t know what I expected, but from the moment the storm had driven everyone from the platform, I had not seen another soul. I lifted the shade on the cabin door to see a man on the other side. A man I could only describe as a warrior. He was older than I, though, not by much. Or, perhaps he was younger. Everything about his face seemed hardened and coarse, as if he had spent far too long hunkered in some trench or rucking his way over unforgiving miles in the same fierce storm. Neither was there any softness in his frame. Muscled and lean, about my height, but far, far stronger – within and without – he struck me as the kind of man I would fear to come upon in the dark, but would rest easy to have at my back. His hair was silver and thick, long enough to reach his shoulders. In some ways, he reminded me of those old soul surfers who seemed to live upon the waves, needing nothing but those ever drawing valleys and peaks. His clothing matched my own, roughly, though of an infinitely better quality. Weathered brown boots, dark grey jeans, an off-white collared shirt, and an olive drab coat. Around his neck he wore a simple and relatively small crusader’s cross of deep red enamel rimmed in silver. I did not know then why I recognized him.

I opened the door.

“I understand you would like to see the rest of the train,” he said. His voice was what you would expect, given his appearance, but in its formidable depth, I heard a kindness of long practice.

“I would.”

“Is that all?”

“For now, though, I admit, I don’t know where I am, nor where I am headed.”

“If you did, you wouldn’t be here. Come.”

I followed him down the length of the first passenger car, the cabins on our right all similar to the one I’d entered, and all empty. We came to the rear door and he opened it to the wailing gale outside.

“You will have to jump across to the next car,” he said. “Do not slip.”

He went first, effortlessly clearing the gap as the rail ties blurred beneath the hitch. The rain had not eased at all, and for a moment I hung back in the car, feeling as if I was slipping down an infinite ladder, barely holding the rails while the rungs whipped by, each one saying, It’s too far to climb back.

I could see him waiting for me inside the second car, though. His arm was extended, his sleeve drawn up. In that forearm, I saw a quickness and a strength that would not fail to catch me. So, I jumped.

I’m happy to say I made it, with only a slight bauble on the landing. I felt certain I could do it again if I had to, and surer footed at that.

This next car was open, no private cabins here. Rugged and worn, patched and piecmealed, but intentionally kept up, the seats were arranged on either side, with an aisle down the middle. I noticed luggage strewn about the overhead racks, along with various items left on the seats or draped over the back. My eyes settled on a particular seat, where someone had left a faded red “No Fear” ballcap. Next to it there sat an updside down, splayed open copy of Great Expectations.

As for the seats themselves, they were all empty.

“Is there anyone else on the train?” I asked.

“Yes and no,” came the reply. “This is the car of fragments. Things thought then forgotten.”

“Not to be found again?”

“They told me you were a writer. Surely you know ‘Forgotten’ is not the same as ‘Lost.’”

I grimaced at this remark, for I hadn’t written anything in a long, long while. Accepting the correction, I gave him a nod and we carried on to the end. As my guide opened the door and prepared to jump, he stopped.

“These next cars will not be so easy. Are you sure you want to continue?”

“I have nowhere else to be.”

For a split second, he seemed to fade or change, standing there in the doorway. What had been a man in full, slid, as it were into something that looked like a living painting. I’m not an artist, so I can only speculate, but his form reminded me of the texture of rich oils on canvas. I looked behind me for a moment, trying to fix the other items in my mind, but it all seemed to merge with the landscape racing by on my periphery. I jumped again.

Every element in this next car felt freshly built, from the deep red leather seats, to the dark wood panelled sides, to the bright brass fixtures and handholds. Looking out the windows, the rain continued to fall, but only as a steady, gentle mist. I had not noticed it when we made the first transfer, but now I saw that we were slowly moving over a long multi-arched trestle of stone which cut its way through a land of virginal green, a lush forest undiscovered, frightening in its vastness, but altogether peaceful.

I could imagine riding through this forest without end. Sitting in this car to eat, and read, and sleep for days. My guide watched me closely, and this perhaps, was the only cause I had for concern, though what could be wrong among such untouched beauty I could not say.

Carefully, as if I feared I might mar it, I reached up to take hold of a spiralled brass pole. The train moved smoothly through here, with naught but the occasional slight shimmy. Still, the metal evoked such joy in its craft, I felt as if I’d grasped something that could forever steady me, like a boy holding to the pole of a merry-go-round horse as it rises and falls.

I looked to my left, and nearly lost my grip.

For on the western side of the track, rising out of the forest was a sharp ridgeline, running close to the trestle. So close, it almost seemed at any moment the two tracks would collide, and the train would careen to the floor below. The rain was so fine at this point, it only glided in small rivulets over the glass. Somewhere above the clouds, the sun continued its work, casting them in a bright grey.

Along the ridge I saw a girl running, fast and unafraid, nearly keeping pace with the train. How, I don’t know, but within that mystery, I could hear her breathing and her footfalls as if they were right beside me. I felt the sudden urge to run to the back door and leap from the train. To run upon that same ridge. As I began to let go of the pole, the pricking feeling in my thumb returned, and I had to force myself to hold on. My whole arm seemed to shake with the effort. My head swam then, and I knew if I let go, this serene, patiently lilting car would throw me over. I glanced back to the ridge once more, only to see her disappear into a dense stand of trees. The trestle bent swiftly away at that point. The train barrelled on, leaving the ridge far behind.

My guide had said nothing during this. He only nodded soberly and moved along when it was over. I let go and followed him.

The next car was dark red throughout, drapped in curtains along the left wall to block the windows, while the windows to my right had run into one another, forming one wide aperture. I assumed we’d passed into the night, for I could see nothing out that great window. The only light available to me here was that provided by a pair of brass sconces at either end of the car, and a series of small running lights dotting the floor. My guide waited near the closest sconce, and for the quickest moment, I thought I saw him flicker, as if he were a film projected into the railcar at a steady, almost indiscernible 24 frames per second. Only then did I realize there were seats arranged in a sidelong row at my left, their armrests and seatbacks covered in a cheap red velvet-looking cloth, their cushions currently flipped upward. Each cushion had a scuffed metal frame, and on each frame was a number. Looking to my right again, I could see that what had at first appeared to be a wide, dark window, was in fact a screen. I had been led into a movie theater, that place of aimless summer days and endless adventures. That second home of my youth.

Moving my way along the row, I found a seat in the middle, number 13, and sat down, feeling again that same anticipation over what may come when the projector lamp lit, and the reels began their turning.

There came a whirring hum and a click, then a brief, blinding moment of light on the screen, followed by the roll of the (usually unseen) leader, with her countdown and threaded scratches. I took a quick look back, and could see that the booth was, in fact, a small window cut in the upper portion of the railcar, and the light source appeared to be the moon in full, filtering through the occasional dust whorl as the train rocked or thudded over a switch in the track. The pop landed on “2,” as it should, and then came the music, a low and lilting solo cello. A piece I had never heard, but perhaps had heard a thousand times. There were no trailers, no credits; only a slow fade in from black upon a vast desert of golden sand, shimmering with heat, stretching on between sharp, jagged cliffs into a sky bluer than my eyes could take. As the wind whistled off the rocks, stirring the sand, I felt an overwhelming homesickness. The music faded, and soon the canvas became glass, became nothing – no barrier between seeing and feeling. The celluloid shook once more in gate, a brief softening of focus in the frame, then suddenly, everything hardened into reality. I no longer felt that I was sitting, but neither was I walking. If anything, I had become a living camera, carried by one I could not see. It was too much. Too much to capture. Too much to hold.

My guide placed his hand upon my shoulder, my mind settled, and then we were both standing there in the sand, two men walking along, hiding our eyes from the heat, pulling our collars up over our mouths to breath as the wind whipped the sand into a biting tempest. I looked for the train track, but could see nothing.

“Come!” he shouted.

Like a fearless soldier, he charged ahead through the storm, and I fought to keep up with him. My eyes stung fiercely, forcing gritty tears out to maintain even the slightest vision, straining against the storm. I climbed a dune until my legs shook. Till my throat rasped and my head pounded. I wondered how I ever played in the full sun like this. Were my parents insane?

At last I stumbled and pitched forward, sliding down, tumbling and rolling over and over, coming to rest in a rocky valley. The wind abated, and cool breeze rose kindly to meet me.

I lifted my head just in time to see a form leaping over me, shouting and whooping. I watched as it landed. A boy, maybe twelve, maybe a little older, racing away on a BMX bike, pedaling for all his might, then readying for another jump. He cranked the handle bar sideways, throwing his weight to kick the tail, then righted himself just in time for the next landing. It was a little rough, and he had to put a leg out to keep from bailing, but then came the gleeful skid in the dirt, and the look back for affirmation. No helmet, just sweaty hair, scabbed up knees, and a wide smile. Behind me, I heard the shadowy forms of other boys cheering from their bikes. One of them shouted, “I’ve never seen a girl’s bike get that much air!” and they all laughed. Then one by one, they each took their runs, flying by me or flying over me. The last of them landed in a swirl of dust, then all of them took off, winding their way over the valley floor and out of sight. I thought it odd that in this desolate place, I could see a 7-Eleven sign in the distance, green and red and white (with a splash of orange), calling them on.

“We’re almost there,” my guide said.

I had almost forgotten about him. We walked on, for a long, peaceful while. I said nothing, for I could not stop thinking about the boys and their bikes. How each had his own horse, how some had even named them. How they would only be this way once. Without fear of sundown. With dreams untroubled by dragons. I wondered if I could stay here. I wondered if I could catch them now. Meet them at the 7-Eleven. Spend every last quarter on whatever arcade game they had in the back. I hoped it would be Rastan, or maybe Space Harrier. Even Heavy Barrel would do. I could taste a cherry Jolly Rancher rolling around in my mouth. I rubbed my finger and thumb together, feeling for a silver coin that wasn’t there.

A sudden roar tore me from the moment. The high, sharp, snarling roar of a leopard. I turned to see one, gold and sleek perched atop the rock nearest me. Its eyes were a bright amber, like those waves struck just right by the sun at magic hour. Satisfied at disrupting my reverie, it turned its head and bounded off the rock, loping away to another, then climbing up to resume a sentry-like watch. In its line of sight I saw a man, haggard and burdened, beat down by the waning sun, trying to pile up dry sand into some form. Frustrated, he tried to mix the sweat of his brow into a palmful of sand, but whatever he sought to make, it continued to crumble away. Over and over again, I heard him say, clear and deluded, “The castle’s in here. In here. Here!” On the last word, he shot an angry sneer at the sun, throwing the fistful of sweaty sand at it.

“Will he be alright?” I asked my guide.

“The leopard will see he doesn’t harm himself further,” he replied.

“What if he flees?”

“Would that he’d try.”

“The leopard won’t let him?”

“The leopard would welcome it. He is not to be trifled with, but he is not cruel.”

I watched the man a moment longer, saddened at his forsaken freedom, wondering if he even knew there were boys running wild a few miles away, fueld on Big Gulps, flying on two wheel steeds, fighting for 16-bit glory.

I heard the whistle of the train blow loud and clear on the horizon.

“Do you mind if I run?” I asked.

“By all means.”

With that, I raced as fast as my weary, dodgy legs could carry me. With every stride, I felt the jolt of tightened tendons, and the weakness of chair-bound muscles resenting my office, my commute, my couch. My side stitched up, my lungs clawed for air, but I refused to stop. For all this, I knew I’d hurt in the morning, likely for days. I didn’t care. Wherever that train was headed, I needed to be on it, hurtling forward, walking back.

My legs failed me, though, and I slowed to a dragging walk, sweating through my clothes like a man under the weight of fever. At last, I came upon a sea of tumbling waves. A dark, indigo ocean under the setting sun. Without thinking, I pulled my boots off, rolled up my jeans, and ran into the shallows, nearly falling in them.

Farther out, the waves broke white and thunderous, taking their time as they rolled, so that by the time they reached the shore, they were little more than lapping trails of wandering foam. The clear cold of the water renewed my feet, and I felt I could walk along that strand for hours like this, listening for stones calling to be skipped. The cuffs of my pantlegs were wet almost immediately, for I paid no attention to to the ebb and flow. Indeed, I welcomed the sodden, salty scratch along my ankles. It seemed to reach an itch I did not know I’d had.

For awhile I forgot about the train altogether.

Darth Vader floated past my feet, followed by some Stormtroopers. Then Chewbacca, Han and Luke in their snow gear, Leia in her Bespin outfit, Artoo and Threepio. Finally, Yoda and Lando bobbed in, with Boba Fett bringing up the rear. I reached down and scooped up the little bits of plastic, roughened by their time upon the tide. Looking back to the beach, I saw a small boy digging in the wet sand, using an empty McDonalds fry box as a form to stack his castles. I walked over to him and laid the figures at his feet. His eyes went wide and his smile went wider. I could see his mother sitting on the sand watching. Although she seemed a bit sad, she didn’t look the least bit sick.

The ground jostled beneath me and everything flickered. I was back in my seat, the screen white, the tail of the film slapping loose in the projector.

“It’s out of order,” I said. “The girl in the previous car came later.”

“Yes,” was all my guide said. He now stood at the other end of the theater car, a faintly glowing green exit sign over the door. I stood up, taking another look at the “13” embossed on the edge of my seat, running my fingers along the numbers. Biking scars and broken toys lingered there, and I wanted to keep them.

We jumped the gap to the next car, the sky having turned orange, the rain only a scent.

The floor gave gently, as if were made of soft, late October grass, still green, but bending yellow. The walls were lined with sturdy tree trunks of various breeds, their boughs arching along the ceiling to entwine above me. Everywhere, there were leaves. Yet, it seemed they moved independently of the railcar’s motion. In fact, within seconds, I had forgotten the train’s movements altogether. All I could feel - all I could see - was the ripple of an elusive wind in the branches overhead, giving the sense that at any moment, a trove of gold and crimson would fall, calling for glad gathering and a gladder leaping.

A long wooden table ran down the center of the car, stacked with every comfort food I could imagine. Hearty soups and steaming pot pies, mac ‘n cheese with brisket, chili and corn bread (dripping with honey butter), roasted turkey with mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce, apple pie, pumpkin pie, hot coffee, sweet cream. Every smell spoke of days I wanted to remember, seasons I hoped had not come to an end, years I trusted to come.

Yet, in the moment, I was not hungry. Maybe I should have been. I felt guilty that I wasn’t, realizing all the effort that must have gone into this feast. And, all I could think was, “I’m the horse who can’t be made to drink.” I can’t explain it, other than to say that as I looked around at the artfully fallen leaves, something was deeply amiss within. I turned to my guide.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“For what?”

“For all this. For whoever has gone to this trouble. I should want to try it all, but… I can’t.”

“You’re not hungry?”

“No. I wish I was, but…” My stomach tightened and a lump seemed to form in my throat. “It’s too late for me, is the thing. I can’t stop to take this in, not with my eyes, not with my mouth. I have to keep moving.”

“I understand,” he said, his eyes moving to the next door. A darkness seemed to fall over his features then, almost as if he were stepping into shadow. “You should take something, though. You will need your strength.”

I looked again at the table, feeling nothing but a strange void where my appetite should be. My guide had already begun walking towards the back of the car. At the last minute I snatched up a dusty red apple and chased him down.

I stepped into the next car, knowing I’d gone wrong. The sky outside had turned dark and bleak, with a vicious charcoal colored horizon line. The train seemed to groan as her wheels studded over rough and corroded rails. The car was dimly lit and smelled of old grease and rusty water. I could not find my guide anywhere.

“Hello?” I called.

I was met only with a hollow laugh. Girlish and playful, but horribly drained of life, like some mimicry of innocence by a machine. I walked forward slowly, my feet slipping upon glossy magazines scattered all over the floor. The light in here was so broken and wan, I could only make out glimpses of their covers. It was enough. Revulsion and anger and shame crashed upon me as the train squealed around a hard turn, throwing sparks like embers into the night. Lightning rent the sky, and in its light I saw the breadth of a dead forest below, full of bare trees and dried bramble. Kindling craving only a touch of flame. I pushed forward – or backward, as the case was – trying to reach the next car, when I felt something brush past me. Again, the dreadful laugh came, teasing. A woman moved along the edge of my sight, in oily shadow, her bare form mocking me. I shut my eyes and fumbled my way along. All the wrong hunger found me then. I wanted to throw the apple away and reach for the shadow. I did not want to be here, and yet I did. I wanted something true and right and loving, yet something in me wanted to consume that flitting, poisonous thing. For the first time since this journey began, I wept.

“Help me!” I cried.

A strong arm gripped my wrist. “Remember!” the voice commanded.

I cannot describe the sensation that ran to my fingertips then. Vaguely, I might compare it to that sudden, jangling pain that comes when you’ve struck the inside of your elbow just right, yet the reaction here was the inverse. Rather than my hand going numb, my grip tightened, and every nerve ending seemed to shout.

Eat!

Half stupid and half blind, I bit into the apple. Nothing had ever tasted so complete, so satiating, so pure as that mouthful. The fullness of that good grateful table, hastily neglected, now filled and fitted me for war. I took a second bite, and the shadows fled. A third, and the smell of oil disappeared. A fourth, and the train glided into clear sky. A fifth, and I ran for the exit. I heard one last laugh, pleading for me to look back. I bit again, and ripped the door open. Outside the air was bracing and biting and beautifully white. I launched myself across the divide, gladly, freely.

My guide stood hale and hearty, even pleased as I stepped into the next car. In fact, he had never seemed so real to me as he did now. I hazarded a smile, to which he kindly tilted his head. The railcar was warm, bedecked in green garland, with paned windows looking out to fields of snow. There were only a few oversized chairs here, a couch, and no end of blankets. The smell of split fir and aged apple trees drew my attention to the far end, where firewood lay stacked all around the arched exit, to the ceiling. In the center of the car, upon a round, bricked hearth, stood a cast iron stove, its pipe running up through the roof. All along the car, on both sides, were shelves beneath the windows. Shelves filled with books and boardgames, with crafts and curios. Silver glinted from a thousand accents – bells tied in garland, stars hung from the ceiling, spoons set beside cups of spiced cider.

I recalled how I wished to stay in that summerland, and how I knew I could not. Now, I understood why. This was still waiting.

“How long may I stay here?” I asked.

“As long as it takes. There is no calendar for these days.”

And so we sat, by the stove, sipping cider, eating cookies – I do not know how they got there – and while my guide was not a talkative man, he was happy to converse about any book I took off the shelf. Time not being an issue, I settled in for a long delayed return to Middle Earth, roving my way through The Lord of the Rings. Then, after a good winter’s nap, I read The Silmarillion in one sitting. Feeling the need for a change, I finished (finally) the tales of Sherlock Holmes, then turned to Stevenson. Refilling my hundredth cup, I last came upon a shelf filled with dog-eared paperback Westerns, all of which I recognized as having once lived in my grandfather’s den. I read them all. During this time, my companion quietly began and completed Dickens’ entire body of work, then Homer, then Shakespeare, then Dostoyevsky. Somewhere along the way, he also read all of Grimms, Andersen, and every Arthurian variant imaginable. We took turns in between, reading the Bible aloud to each other.

He became especially moved when reading Matthew 27:52.

By the by, I came to the last line of Revelation as the train entered a deep wood of white and green. I moved to add some wood to the stove, readying for the darker, colder evening, when suddenly, I heard music. The train slowed as we entered a broad clearing, alive with flutes and drums, full of starlight and…

A great seafaring ship, stranded in the middle of the forest.

Her hull had lodged in ice, somewhere – somewhen – I imagined. Her sails were torn to strips now, and her crew had clearly been beaten and buffetted by the hard, harsh clime. Yet, here in this wood, a mighty bonfire rose to thaw her, to welcome her. I could see woodland folk dancing around the fire, greenery in their hair, their robes flowing light and airy like sails upon an unknown sea. Beyond them, at the edge of the clearing stood a grand cabin, its main structure three stories high, its sides flung wide like open arms, full of windows, every one of them lit. From the porch, a spry giant of a man tromped, bedecked in red velvet, with a wooden staff in one hand and a massive netted sack of bright oranges over his shoulder. I could see his smile from the train. He bellowed a greeting that cut clear across the field. A cabin boy ran to ring the ship’s bell. Scurvy ridden men leapt and cheered.

“Christmas rights every ship,” I said.

“I suppose it must,” my guide replied. “Are you ready to move on then?”

I took another look out the window. The train seemed in no hurry to leave, and in all honesty, neither was I. But I felt the end of my journey approaching, and it seemed better to me to leave wanting a little more. I believed, without being able to say why or when, I would return to that wood some day. I might spend a few centuries repairing that ship, just for the joy of it. I would live long in that house with those merry folk.

We entered the last car. At least, the last car for me. I suspected it might look as it did. A little worn, a little threadbare, a little damp. The rain had returned, light and friendly upon the bare metal of the roof. The windows were fogged. One had a crack running across it. It was small, barely enough room for us all – the three of us. We were standing in a caboose made to look like the cab of my first pickup.

Sitting at the back was young man. 18, to be exact.

I watched him for awhile, lost in his comic books (Youngblood, WildC.A.T.S., Cyber-Force, Spawn), his Def Leppard CDs, and a pile of soft taco wrappers (how did I ever eat that much?). He seemed then quite sad to me, even though I remember that moment as feeling near perfect. I knew now the ache the rain had come to soothe. I knew Who sent it. I knew, in some ways, this boy would always go back to his stories, curled in some corner, trying to piece broken sentences together, like scattered thought balloons, trying to follow the dialogue and the art in the right order. I knew how that order would elude him. I knew this would be the year than sent him into a storm of my own making.

“Do you want to say anything to him?” my guide asked.

I thought about it. I really did. I mean, this is the dream we all say we want, isn’t it? If I knew then what I know now. But, no, the mark was already struck upon me here, indellible. And who was I to counsel? Even if he heard me, he’d find another snare to tie himself in.

“We can’t go back before this, can we?”

My guide thought on this far longer than I would have imagined. And in that space, I saw his form dim, till what stood near was more a ghostly pencil sketch of the man than anything I’d seen so far. I felt a spreading cold in my chest, knowing I had asked too much. Reached too far. I remembered then, the leopard and the man who sought to remake his castle.

“No,” I said. “I should not have asked it. I don’t want to go back. You brought me here for a reason, and I’ll not ask to change it. I will always regret it – till the last tear is taken – but I would not meddle with it. I know my guilt. And I know the good that was wrought from it. I’m sorry. I’ve always been sorry.”

His lines inked themselves again, his four color form returned, vibrant and bold, then the color flickered and became more real, solid, and soon he looked to be a man again. His tender, warlike visage told me all I needed to know. My hands had already been in motion before this moment was crafted. I’d have to go all the way back to the blank page, and then what? Could I redraw the lines any better and still arrive here, with my wife and children? Could I even remember all I’ve forgotten?

I couldn’t take this boy from this train without unmaking the man who’d gotten on it.

“He’s safe here,” my guide said.

“Bagged and boarded, as it were.”

He smiled slyly. “You really need to work on those dour turns of phrase. But, yes.”

There was no pricking in my thumb. It had faded somewhere along the way, probably while I turned the pages of all those books in the bleak midwinter. Still, I felt a weight on one hand. A weight I knew had been there all along, but had grown too familiar with. I spun my wedding ring on my finger, thinking back to the first car my guide had led me to. The car of random items I had seen without seeing. The wedding dress hung over the seat had been my daughter’s. The suitcase my son packed when he moved out sat in the luggage rack. The pictures from our home, full of beach days, and cabin trips, and Disneyland had been neatly arranged throughout. The collar of our family dog, gone too soon. The Sunday mornings at church. The afternoons by the fireplace. The movie nights. The lightsaber fights. The soccer games. The friends, old and new. The tears and trials. I saw it all.

“I remember,” I said. “Not in order, but I remember.”

My guide nodded. “Time may be a straight line. Memory need not be.”

I laughed a little then. “I know who you are,” I said.

I don’t remember how I got back to the station after that. I don’t remember getting off the train. I don’t remember going home. But I did. The wishing behind, the work ahead.

I woke while it was still dark that morning. I wasn’t ready to get up, but I couldn’t fall back asleep. Reaching over, I put my arm around my wife and laid like that for a few minutes. My birthday had come, and I still didn’t know what I wanted to do. But I knew it would be with this woman, in the home we’d made. That was more than enough.

I walked out to the kitchen to make some coffee, replaying that last conversation on the train. I knew who he was, or rather I should say, who he was made to look like. That same year I turned 18, I had created a character. A noble crusader, wise and strong, lost in time and making his way in the modern world. A man of holy purpose, however displaced. I’d never written him beyond those brief sketches, yet he’d been waiting on that train all this time. The coffee poured, I opened a notebook to jot down some ideas. From where I sat, I could see the oven clock with its faintly lit green numbers. It read 4:44.

(Image courtesy of Vecteezy)