The 16:03 to Purgatory (Part One of Two)

The 16:03 to Purgatory (Part One of Two)

Air shimmered in iridescent layers, desert heat smouldering under a cloudless Arizona sky. A diamondback rattlesnake slithered wraith-like amongst rocks and boulders, another silent deception ready to inflict on prey yet stalked itself by circling eagles above. Amongst the desolation, rusting metal gathered more dust, a white elephant sunk in ochre dunes. Hard to decipher now and barely evident on the side, words scrawled in cursive by hands soaked in irony. Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds would have been clearly visible once. Deactivated and no longer a threat, the dormant missile slept, its inert nuclear slumber oblivious to the fate of its maker. Whether in this world or the next.

His head ached, a dull pounding that beat out a timpani in time with the sound of the train. As hard as he tried, there was no recollection of anything at all before sitting in this musty carriage. Countryside rushed past, trees and fields, hedgerows and solitary farm houses in the middle of nowhere. Faint sunshine breached pallid clouds, rays filtering through windows, dust motes visible in the sallow light.

The seat opposite lay conspicuously empty; he was alone stewing in isolated turmoil. Leaning forward, his reflection glared back from the window pane giving an opportunity to reacquaint himself with his appearance. Grey hair swept across the top of his scalp, creases etched in an aged forehead. Bushy eyebrows paraded above doleful eyes, a sharp, jutting nose protruded from sunken cheeks, thin lips pursed in an authoritative mouth. A grey suit, waist coat and tie made him look austere, formal. Gauged as in his sixties, he thought he looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

If only he could remember who he was. A dark mahogany wood panel and flower-shaped lamp behind hinted at ostentatiousness. He used to be someone important. A wooden pipe lay unused next to him along with a charcoal-coloured trilby hat. Rustling inside his jacket, fingers groped a slim box of matches nestled at the bottom. He struck one alight and drew in a lungful of tobacco. It felt good prompting a thin smile.

The train swept on, intent on not stopping at stations it seemed albeit there had been so sign of any. An ornate pocket watch dangling from a chain on his jacket indicated the time as just before five pm. He estimated a journey of half an hour so far, mostly spent daydreaming and feeling lost. There was a numbness that permeated his entire body rendering him lethargic as though recovering slowly from an infusion of novocaine. Only now did it seem apparent to open the door to the corridor and explore. It would have been expected that other passengers might have passed by or even a conductor but the only sounds were from locomotion accompanied by occasional gentle rocking as track was negotiated in all its imperfection.

Discovery of the tobacco pipe had jolted faint memories. He could see hazy faces surrounding him, looking down with concerned expressions. Their mouths were moving but no sound could be heard. It was like he was lip reading due to being deaf. Somehow he was aware that he hadn’t suffered from that affliction but the silence pervaded the memory. Shapes that had been surrounding him were fading away. He was falling, eyes drifting closed. He was sure now that this must have been his death bed setting. The recollection seemed distant, a vacuum of some kind where time stopped and moments passed in slow motion. The last thing he could recall were his gnarled digits caressing his throat. That had ushered the knell. Existential. It occurred to him that he was dead.

With that self-revelatory moment came the sensation that the train was slowing. The view through the window hadn’t changed; yet more bucolic scenery scrolled left but there was definitely a decline in momentum. The man pressed his face to the pane, straining eyes to see what was ahead. In the distance a platform was nearing. He could see ashen-smoke billowing into the air from the steam engine up ahead. This struck him as odd but he wasn’t sure why. An anachronism? He wasn’t sure about a lot of things at the moment. Feelings of confusion remained. There were so many questions roaming around in his head. Surely there were other people on the train? Where was the intended destination? How could he be here at all if he had died? Was he dead or was this some kind of nightmare? If it was the latter, it was incredibly lucid.

With a stop now in sight, it might have been expected that an urban conurbation would appear as field and pasture relented. Instead: outbuildings, rail track sidings with dormant engines stationary signalled the beginning of a platform. An aluminium sign attached to a timber-panelled fence declared the name of the outpost in black painted letters:

PURGATORY

Wheels screeched and metal sparked as the rolling stock came to a halt. Outside seemed familiar enough. Grey concrete with a yellow line demarcating the edge behind which patrons were meant to stand for their own safety. Deserted waiting rooms ran alongside the track, rectangular glass enclosures with plastic seating inside. The solitary traveller stood gingerly and opened the door to the corridor. Far from being empty, people had suddenly appeared as though a dam had burst. Men, women and children, young and old bustling to get off the train. Voices were raised, a cacophony of sound and fury that became deafening very quickly. Human cargo streamed out and into the station, a scene reminiscent of wartime drama and journeys from the abyss.

The man waited for everyone else to disembark preferring to avoid the melee that had ensued. He watched patiently, an outstretched arm gripping the top of a door frame. It was a curious mix of humanity that flowed before him. Olive-skinned men each wearing head-dress, black women with florid skimpy tops and shorts and urchin children with dazed expressions and open-toed sandals. It appeared to be a cross-section of nationalities making their way into an unknown immediate future.  A little white boy held his hand out as a woman took him by the wrist and eased him gently onto the platform. He seemed to be the last of the manifest. There was no need to stand observing any more so the man followed the throng and lightly jumped down from the steam train taking care to mind the gap.

A hundred yards or so away was an exit to the left through turnstiles. The problem was that there was a thick, impenetrable blanket of fog beyond it that reduced visibility to a matter of inches. The very air was thick with foreboding, a subliminal warming to avoid straying beyond the perimeter. It would take a leap of faith to cross the barrier made trickier by the fact nobody had actual tickets to open them. A small group had pooled in front of the way out and were looking at each other for inspiration. Before a tall, gangly Somalian male with a strained expression could execute a reckless leap into a mysterious yonder, an announcement crackled over the Tannoy system in a brusque staccato woman’s voice.

“The train at platform two will be departing at 17:38 calling at Transcendence then returning to Earth, arriving at 18:41. Those passengers looking to board this train, please make your way to platform Two.”

The voiceover prompted a brief reduction in noise whilst those present listened, hungry for direction. The message was repeated in several languages to ensure all arrivals were covered but by the time of the third repetition, the gathering had worked out what to do next from watching others’ movement. Getting to platform two meant traversing stone stairs on both sides and a foot bridge than ran overhead. With the realisation that they could return to somewhere normal, a tide of arms and legs swept up and across the linking passageway. Within moments, the only ones remaining on the north-bound side were the man and a lonely figure, head bowed wearing a cowl, sitting on a moulded-plastic bench inside a glass-fronted waiting room.

The station was devoid of anybody on duty; no attendants in case of problems with getting through gates, no personnel manning ticket offices, no staff running the coffee shop on the way out. It was unclear who the announcer was and where they were based in this odd state of affairs. More curious yet, colour and life had seeped out of the surroundings in the last few seconds; everywhere had become monochrome like a black and white still. Like a sepia-stained photograph.

The man ambled over to an enclosure and entered, padding over to the bench where the robed individual was sitting. He wedged himself at the other end of the seat so as not to be too close. Across the tracks and on the platform opposite, increasing numbers of people spilled out, filling the area like ink expanding on blotting paper. Most looked anxious, expressions full of trepidation and worry. The only thing that made sense was to attempt to return to a status quo and unpick the events since arriving on the train. Any suggestion of group co-operation and cohesion was hampered by the fact that the souls present were from countries all around the world, the language barrier a formidable obstacle to coherent communication.

“Should I be following the flock and join the rest of the sheep?”

These were the first words spoken by the man since finding himself on a train. It felt strange especially as he wasn’t sure whether they were rhetorical or addressed to his fellow seat-dweller.

Seconds passed where no answer came. They both continued to watch the horde across the tracks, wondering whether a train would arrive any time soon to whisk them all away again like refugees from a nether world.

“If you wait for….just a few moments….you will see that perhaps your decision to err on the side of stoicism is an…interesting one.” The word “interesting” was drawn out for emphasis.

The voice was a whisper, a low calculated hissing sound. Whoever it was remained leaning forward with face obscured, hands clasped together, wrists poking out of the ends of a brown cowl tied at the waist with a belt made from the same roughly-hewn material.

As both peered at the milling multitude, a thick mist started to roll in from above, spreading across platform two. It looked innocuous enough to begin with but, as it spread, things became more insidious quite quickly. Those caught in the fog seemed to be consumed by it, their physical being swept from sight. Within a few minutes all that could be seen was a billowing nebulous shroud ebbing and flowing along the platform concealing everything in its path.

“Their journey has truly begun.”

Part two at: https://www.abctales.com/story/marandina/1603-purgatory-part-two-two

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