Along For The Ride: And Other Stories Read online

Woo-Wooooo!

      The warm hoot of a train whistle that sounded out into nowhere in particular is what pulled Arnold from the blackness of sleep. He blinked the leftover drowsiness from his eyes, sat up, and after a deep breath in let out a long, loud yawn.

      He only had a moment to look around and realize he was on the train that whistled before another man burst into his car from the door on the right. Both stared at the other, surprised, and exclaimed at the same time, “You’re nude!”

      “What?!” 

      They looked at themselves and erupted in laughter.

      “I suppose we are.” Said the other man with some laughter still in his voice. “Have you been in here the whole time?”

      Arnold thought for a moment, but couldn’t remember. “I don’t know, I just woke up.”

      “Me too.” Said the other man. “What’s your name?”

      “Arnold. And yours?”

      “Charles, but you can call me Chuck.”

      The men were both standing now and looking around.

      “I don’t remember getting on a train.” Arnold said looking outside through one of the windows. The scenery was all green and blue and purple, some red here, a splash of white there. Trees and flowers were in bloom and animals were chasing their young everywhere, coloring the windows beautifully like a painting of springtime by Monet.

      “Neither do I.” Chuck replied, now searching behind cushions and under seats. “I don’t remember anything before I woke up.”

      Arnold tried to think back but found nothing beyond that distant howling of the train whistle.

      Chuck interrupted his attempts to remember. “Hey, Arnie! This door’s open, let’s explore the rest of the train.”

      Arnold scrunched his face at the nickname but turned anyway to follow. He was just as curious to see.

      The next car smelled of tobacco smoke and only had an easy chair on the left, which was facing the right wall. The wall of the car that the chair was facing was actually just a big window. It was one large pane of glass through which one could sit and enjoy the view of the trip. On the side table next to the chair was a small metal ash tray in which sat a partially-smoked cigar, still lit, next to a glass of watered-down whiskey.

      “I think someone was here.” Arnold said as he squeezed the arm of the chair and noted how soft it was.

      Chuck made no reply. He was standing about a foot away from the glass, his hands on his hips, investigating the scenery. What he saw now was a view of endless rolling hills of green grass. In the distance stood a great, lone apple tree. Its trunk was strangely curved almost like the letter “S” and on the floor around it were apples of all colors.

      He felt an odd sensation of a memory in the back of his mind, but it quickly went away with a shudder. The tree made him feel uneasy, so he looked away to the left and ever farther in the distance at the dark clouds rolling over the horizon.

      He turned as he heard Arnold open the door to the next car. “Wait for me!”

      They entered what appeared to be the dining room. A table stretched almost the entire length of the car and was filled with plates of scrambled eggs, bacon, ham steaks, biscuits, bowls of cereal, pitchers of water, milk, and orange juice.

      Arnold’s stomach rumbled and he realized he was more than just a little hungry. “I haven’t eaten yet, have you?”

      “Not yet.” Chuck answered, his eyes never leaving the slabs of ham. “So we might as well. Somebody laid this out for us, it’s still warm. Let’s have some” He filled his plate with eggs, bacon, and ham and got a second plate to stack pancakes on.

      Arnold too got a plate for eggs and bacon but paired it with two slices of toast and a bowl of honey granola cereal with nuts.

      There was a chair on each end of the table. Chuck took the far seat in front of the door to the next car and Arnold sat in the chair near the door they just entered.

      They sat in silence enjoying their first meal since they could remember, the only sounds were of them crunching toast, sipping juice, and tinking their forks on their plates. Occasionally they would make eye-contact with cheeks full of food and giggle.

      Things went on like this for a few minutes(Arnold saw a clock above the door to the next car but it had no hands), until the room was suddenly filled with the sounds of violin music. They both jumped and Chuck, who had a mouth full of ham steak, began choking when he gasped and a piece of ham went down his throat unexpectedly.

      As Chuck drank some juice and tried to regain his breath, Arnold looked around and spotted something that either wasn’t there before or that he missed because he was so focused on the food. Hanging from the ceiling above the table was a phonograph. In it was a small, dark yellow cylinder of wax slowly spinning to push the music out through the amplifier which was shaped like the front of a trumpet.

      The music was slow and sad and was of only one violin with no other instruments to accompany it. They both began to search for a way to shut it off but were unsuccessful. The music began to get louder and more shrill until it seemed the musician was no longer interested in producing any sort of song, but only to make his violin screech.

      The men were now covering their ears and rushing to open the door. Chuck yelled something that Arnold couldn’t hear.

      “What?” 

      “It’s locked!”

      Arnold still couldn’t hear over the noise but was able to read Chuck’s lips.

      They frantically searched for a key, throwing the plates of food on the floor, digging through the ham and eggs, and pouring the drinks out. It was Chuck who pulled and old skeleton key from within the big plate of scrambled eggs and yelled “I found it!” But as soon as he held the key up the music stopped so that his words were screamed into the sudden silence and startled them both.

      Barely two seconds had gone by for them to process what just happened before the door to the next car opened on its own and swung softly out.

      Both men were hesitant to enter the pitch black room but Arnold found a light switch and they went in, not wanting to stay in the dining room any longer. A new song of a single trombone had started, but they quickly shut the door behind them and it became silent in the new car, which had no windows and looked like a closet.

      Suits, shirts, dresses, and jeans all hung from both sides of the car on bars that went from one end to the other. Above the clothes, on shelves, were assortments of shoes and high heels.

      “I guess we should get dressed.”

      “Okay.” Arnold replied and pulled a green sundress from its hanger. He struggled to pull it over his body, but it was too small so he threw it on the floor and found a large shirt that went down to his knees. He put it on and only buttoned the first three buttons, though into the wrong holes. He then found some swimming trunks and pulled them on.

      After trying on and throwing aside several pairs of shoes and high heels, he settled into a pair of fuzzy slippers. “Done.”

      “Almost…. There, done.” Chuck was dressed in a pair of slacks that were too tight to button up, a yellow T-shirt with the silhouettes of three birds flying, a black tweed bowler hat, and flip-flops.

      They stared at each other for a moment.

      “You look nice.”

      “Thanks, so do you.”

      Laughter then filled the room as they fell to the ground cackling like mad hyenas.

      Arnold stopped and sat up. “What was that?”

      “What?” Asked Chuck, picking himself up from the floor.

      “It sounded like-” Arnold didn’t have time to finish his sentence when a loud burst of thunder interrupted him.

      “Let’s check it out.” Arnold got up and tried the door to the previous car but remembered what happened in there and pulled his hand from th
e doorknob as if it were a burner on a hot stove.

      “No, this way, Arnie! Wow, this is great, come look!” Chuck called from the next car.

      The car was entirely made of glass and the floor was a soft ground of Irish moss. Both men lay down on their backs looking up at the dark gray sky, the millions of raindrops landing on the car and immediately running in streaks in the opposite direction the train was going.

      They sat silent for what must have been an hour, watching the raindrops occasionally light up blue from the lightning flashes striking the ground all around them. Each time the blue-white bolts shot down, it was as if a picture was being taken and all the raindrops in mid-air would freeze for just a fraction of a second and somehow Arnold knew that those particular sets of drops being flash photographed were as unique as his own fingerprint.

      Either the storm had run its course or it was going one way and they were going another, but they were no longer under it. Slowly the clouds began to dissipate until blue sky was above them from horizon to horizon.

      “Arnold.”

      Surprised by the use of his formal name, Arnold scrunched his eyebrows and answered. “Yeah?”

      “Have you wondered what we’re doing on this train? Or where we’re going?”

      “Well I hadn’t…Until now. It just didn’t occur to me, but now that you mention it, I suppose I would like to know.” Arnold sat up now with his back against one of the walls.

      “We should find out what’s going on. But first, I’m going to change out of these stupid clothes.” Chuck stood up and went back into the closet car.

      Looking down at himself and now feeling silly, Arnold got up and followed. He walked in to find Chuck changing into one of the two business suits which were now the only clothing in the car.

      “Hm.” Arnold muttered thoughtfully and then began reluctantly changing into the other one.

      “I’m going to begin searching for a way out, a way off of this train. I think the best place to start would be talking to the conductor.”

      “The conductor?” Arnold questioned as he finished buttoning up the suit.

      “Well sure! This train isn’t driving itself.”

      The men were now walking out of the closet, across the glass car on the way to the next one.

      “But how do we know that? We’ve seen signs of other people, but no people.” Arnold looked outside as he walked and talked. The train was passing through a desert now, only cacti and tumble weeds spotted the scenery. Far off were red mountains and the sun was high and scorching.

      “Maybe there’s a special car for employees or something. Either way, we’ll understand everything after we talk with the conductor.” Chuck opened the door and was walking through at a brisk, determined pace. He did so through the next five cars.

      He seemed not to notice or care about the oddities he was passing. Arnold, however, was fascinated by some of the things in the cars, but had no time to stop and investigate as he was trying to keep up with Chuck.

      In these cars were: a baby’s crib with a half empty bottle of milk(which they would have found was still warm had they stopped to check it), a poker table which was midway through a hand, a tent that sat in the middle of a car which was painted to look like the night sky, and a car that appeared to be the workroom of a maskmaker.

      It was this car that Chuck finally stopped in. The walls were lined with masks of various types of animals, demons, even some famous people. But it wasn’t the masks that halted him.

      On the table there was a skull with fresh papier-mache strips laid across the face and behind it was what appeared to be a roll of blueprints.

      “Ah, this will be quicker than just guessing at how far the conductor is. For all we know, we could be walking the wrong way.” Chuck unrolled the prints as he talked.

      Arnold moved the skull and a few other items off the table so they could lay them out. He let out a small gasp when they saw what the prints held.

      “No.” Chuck said as he looked at a page which contained more than two hundred diagrams of train cars. He flipped the page and the following showed the same. So did the third and fourth.

      “It doesn’t end.” Arnold said, adjusting his vest. He then added, “Wait, these pages are out of order.”

      “You’re right.” Chuck replied and they scrambled to arrange the pages numerically by the numbers in the top left corners.

      What they found when they were done was a set of diagrams, a sort of map of the train, in which the maskmaker’s car was the center and about three hundred cars spanned out in both directions and pictures of blank cars were on either end.

      “These are cars that have yet to be explored, it seems.”

      “Or created.”

      Chuck eyed Arnold contemplatively. “What do you mean?”

      “Well, suppose each car in this train were created by someone, that’s why the cars on the end are blank; they haven’t been made yet.”

      “That’s impossible. How can train cars be created while the train is in motion?”

      “Maybe,” Said Arnold, staring at the blueprints, “the cars are already there and someone just designs them.”

      “We have to find the conductor.” Chuck sounded less confident now.

      “How can we be sure there is one? We’ve seen no sign of one yet, and the way these cars go on, we may never find him. Perhaps this train has no beginning or end, it just exists as it is and we’re stuck within it.”

      “…Maybe you’re right. Suppose there is no conductor and the train drives itself. Suppose there’s no beginning or end. Then what are we?” Chuck began walking back toward the car they came from and Arnold followed.

      “We’re just along for the ride.” Arnold said as they left the maskmaker’s car.

      On the way back, the dining room’s feast was renewed with a large baked fish, a roast, wine, vegetables and fruit, bread, and more. Neither of the men wanted to stay for a meal again, the sight of the room chased away any appetite they may have built up. They hurried across the room and opened the door as quick as possible when the phonograph began playing a song of a woman singing a sad song in a language they didn’t recognize.

      In the car that held only an easy chair and the window-wall, Arnold stopped to admire the changing scenery. Chuck held the door open, waiting for Arnold to come along with him.

      “Go ahead.” Arnold told him as he sat down in the chair. “I’m stopping here for a while.”

      Chuck stared back for a moment. “Okay. I’m going to see what’s beyond the cars we woke up in.” He shut the door gently behind him.

      Arnold got up and went into the dining car and poured a small glass of whiskey and dropped in three ice cubes. He found a cigar and a metal ash tray along with some matches. He returned to the chair and lit the cigar and sipped the whiskey as he watched the desert fall away and fade into grass and trees once more. Only this time the trees were ablaze with red and yellow and orange leaves.

      The lower temperature outside was cooling the glass of the the window which in turn was cooling the air within the car as well. It felt nice and Arnold enjoyed it as he thought about the time he had spent on the train since he had woken up. He pondered on what it all meant or if it meant anything at all.

      He wondered about the conductor and figured there was one, though they couldn’t reach him. But there definitely was someone guiding the train and perhaps he and the maskmaker were the same person.

      The train was now in the midst of a thicket of trees that were varied shades of red and yellow. Hardly any animals were out save for a few plump squirrels collecting the last of the nuts they could find.

      Arnold had barely taken two sips of the whiskey and the cigar went mostly untouched as he sat thinking. It wasn’
t long before the trees began to thin out and become more bare. He wondered where he had been before he awoke on the train and if it would ever make a stop.

      In between the now leafless trees, flakes of snow began to fall. The first ones melting as they touched the ground, not being able to stick but serving the purpose of cooling the Earth so the flakes that would follow may last into sheets of fluff, making a difference as a whole.

      The door to Arnold’s right opened up on its own, inviting him to walk through, so he obeyed. Once through, back in the car he woke up in, he saw the door to the car behind it was open also. He walked hesitantly toward the door, curious as to what he might find in the following car-Chuck’s car.

      In it he saw stacks of paper-some were maps of train cars and some were notes and journal entries- littered about the floor and seats, some designed and some blank masks upon the walls, silverware and glasses piled in one corner, and sitting in the center of the car on the floor painting a twisted apple tree that was alone among hills and bearing apples of all colors, was an old man.

      “Chuck?”

      The man didn’t look up but continued to paint. Arnold spotted a small mirror on top of a paper stack and walked over to pick it up. Looking back at him in the mirror was another old man with a beard and hair as white as the snow that was now a thick blanket on the ground outside. He put the mirror down and looked at the door to the next car.

      “It doesn’t end.”

      Startled, Arnold looked at the man, who was still painting. “How long…”

      “There’s no telling. But it doesn’t end. It’s just a bunch of shit that seems connected but isn’t. Things seem to relate to one another, but they really don’t. It’s no puzzle because there’s no answer…. You were right.” When he said the last sentence, he looked at Arnold and Arnold could see a sort of defeated acceptance in his eyes, along with a tiredness that was bone deep.

      “I’ve seen as much of this damned train as I care to. I’m going to sleep now.” The man stood up and leaned the painting against one of the seats and lay himself down on another.

      Arnold watched the man drift off to sleep and a minute or two after he lay down the train’s whistle sounded.

      “Goodnight, Chuck.” Arnold turned and went back to his own car and sat for a moment looking out the window and not thinking, just enjoying the landscape. Then, he too, lay down and realized how tired he was. He closed his eyes and let sleep wash over him as the train entered a tunnel and everything became dark. The last sound he heard was the warm hoot of the train’s whistle.

  Rebirth