Chapter 44(39). Oxford Express Train |
──────Wooooooo…
In the distance, a train’s whistle echoed as it barreled down the tracks.
“Step back! Everyone step back!”
A station attendant dashed about ringing his bell, pushing back curious onlookers eager for a closer glimpse of the approaching train.
Two rings of the bell for every blast of the whistle. They performed in perfect harmony, like a well-rehearsed duet.
──────BOOOOOOM!
Everything changed the moment the train entered the platform. The attendant’s efforts became unnecessary.
Passengers standing near the tracks scattered in panic at the blast of the whistle. Those who had only heard tales of steam locomotives stood slack-jawed in amazement, never having imagined they could be so massive, so swift, so thunderously loud.
A religious awe appeared in the eyes of people who had spent lifetimes in cathedrals without ever experiencing true reverence. Overwhelmed by the looming black iron beast, they gazed with a mixture of terror and wonder.
Lifetime residents of London—where all necessities came to them—now venturing beyond city limits for the first time. Weekend excursions of two or three days outside London had become fashionable, making such scenes commonplace at stations every weekend.
Meanwhile, middle-class and wealthier gentlemen and ladies, accustomed to train travel, frowned at the unseemly behavior of these novices. They waited patiently with hands clasped behind their backs, approaching the tracks with measured steps only after the attendant’s signal.
The train sorted people even before boarding.
The platform was a miniature society. Here, human classification was more precise than heaven’s own system.
While Saint Peter might lazily sort souls into just heaven or hell, the train insisted on dividing passengers into three distinct categories despite sharing the same destination: first class, second class, and third class.
Everyone instinctively found their proper place on the narrow platform. Ten station attendants positioned themselves at ten entrances, synchronized with the engineer’s stopping signal. Like assorted nuts settling in a tin, passengers naturally gravitated toward their designated places.
First, the first-class queue.
These people maintained elegance in everything they did. They walked as slowly as physically possible, as if convinced that narrower strides signified greater refinement. This explained why lines formed despite the small number of people. Pushing or rushing was, of course, unthinkable.
The front three carriages awaited them. Each carriage contained two compartments easily accommodating eight people, yet typically occupied by merely two or three passengers.
Next came the second-class queue.
Second class hosted a diverse crowd. Their appearances and attire varied wildly, providing entertaining people-watching. Frugal businessmen clutched purses tightly, fallen aristocrats who couldn’t bear mingling with third-class folk but couldn’t afford first class, and occasionally technicians who’d stumbled into unexpected wealth. Still, most wore suits.
The middle three carriages served this class. Seats came in pairs, six sets total, arranged to face each other in twos. This arrangement made sharing with strangers inevitable. Fixed iron tables between seats provided the only barrier between oneself and others.
At least they had sofas—warm, comfortable seats with Persian-patterned covers.
Finally, third class.
They had no seats whatsoever. The rear four carriages packed in passengers without limit. They mostly looked interchangeable—I’d struggle to tell two apart if asked. Their shabby clothing was uniform, their unwashed faces streaked with grime identical, and above all, their expressions mirrored one another.
Third-class passengers maintained perpetual suspicious glares, clutching pocket belongings against their chests. Standing for hours left them more hunched-shouldered upon disembarking than when they’d boarded.
This made distinguishing the train’s front from its rear effortless. Body parts always protruded from the third-class carriages at the back. Despite being packed with humanity, only harsh breathing and coughing sounds emerged from inside for hours on end.
This ten-carriage configuration had become the standard size for trains entering any station in England.
We boarded the fifth carriage—the very center of second class
Without a word, I seated Marie by the window facing the front of the train, while I took the aisle seat. She formed a small loop with her fingers and tugged at my collar, whispering in a voice barely audible.
“Is it really all right for me to sit in such a nice seat?”
It wasn’t truly a whisper—more her regular voice dropped to a lower register. Her vocal cords seemed incapable of carrying much emotion. To put it poetically, her voice resembled a flute playing melancholy notes in a minor key.
“Of course. I could hardly send you to stand in third class while I sit comfortably in second.”
“But—”
Marie swallowed the rest of her sentence.
“Consider yourself my companion for the journey. You’ve certainly earned the privilege.”
“But master, you can’t afford this.”
Normally, such a remark from Marie would have irritated me, but strangely, I felt nothing at her words. True, I possess both a generous nature and an overwhelming guilt regarding her, but this entire conversation triggered an intense sense of déjà vu.
I’ve had this conversation before. Not just once or twice, but many times.
“Listen, Marie, perhaps—”
Before she could respond, another passenger entered the compartment. Marie, apparently uncomfortable speaking in front of strangers, pressed her lips together and remained silent.
The newcomers were a married couple. They maintained a solemn distance between themselves as if deliberately embodying traditional marital propriety, yet their loving glances betrayed their affection. Even after taking their seats, they kept an unusually wide space between them.
I judged them to be nouveau riche. Nothing in their attire or accessories matched. Yet they were clearly devout believers, evidenced by their impeccably proper conduct.
After the couple settled, a frail elderly gentleman entered. His anxious gaze darted around the compartment as if he were being pursued. He repeatedly glanced out the window, convincing me someone might indeed be following him.
Next came a woman traveling alone. Clearly unaccompanied, she silently took the seat beside the elderly gentleman. Perhaps she believed it improper for a lady to travel unescorted, or possibly she felt the need for protection.
The seats directly behind us remained empty, but across from them sat two men reeking of manure. They resembled wealthy livestock farmers, but the father trembled visibly while the son rubbed his hands together in a manner suggesting mental instability.
“Departing now!” came the station attendant’s shout from outside.
“Wait! Please wait!”
Moments after the whistle blew, a corpulent man frantically leapt into the carriage. He gasped for breath, wiping his sweat-beaded forehead until it gleamed.
With his arrival, our passenger complement was complete. The voices of the attendant and conductor, the whistle’s blare, a weekend train journey beginning.
The carriage, not yet in motion, was enveloped in that peculiar hush that follows commotion.
Relief at boarding on time, anxiety about hours confined with strangers, worry about reaching our destination safely, liberation at the prospect of leaving London for two days.
No—it was closer to fear. Everyone trembled, anxious about disasters not yet occurred.
I gazed out the window.
Outside the window, George Hudson Junior was shouting something. I was suddenly gripped by a maddening conviction that I must stop him—had the carriage door not closed that instant, I might have leapt out and seized him by the throat.
“Are you tired?” Marie asked.
“Yes, I wish only to sit here motionless and do absolutely nothing.”
“How unlike you to speak this way, master.”
“What do you mean, unlike me?”
“You’re speaking like an aged gentleman.”
Still wearing my gloves, I withdrew my flask and unscrewed the cap. I tilted it back, pouring a generous measure of the nearly-full whiskey down my throat. My esophagus burned fiercely, but the sensation quickly subsided. The alcohol seemed to bubble and evaporate in my stomach before returning to whence it came—a figure of speech, of course.
“Hic!”
“Why must you consume so much alcohol all at once?”
Reason grows dim, and fear retreats. I adore darkness. I cherish the veil of ignorance that offers salvation more than intellect ever could. None could claim to love silence more than I.
──────WHOOOOOOO!
The train whistle blared.
That thunderous sound was as foreboding as the trumpet of the angel prophesied in Revelation. The train began to shudder. Fed by our pain and despair, the hellish machinery pulsed with vigorous life.
The wheels turned. The heaviest object on earth began to move by its own power. At first slower than a man’s pace, it gradually gathered momentum until it outstripped the swiftest horse.
Through the window unfolded a scene unique to railway travel.
The destruction of art itself. The invention of the train brought despair to every optimistic artist. Gone forever was the pleasure of sitting in a carriage, watching sky and meadow drift peacefully past—replaced by the ghostly afterimages of wildflowers, glimpsed and gone in an instant.
The atmosphere within the carriage transformed dramatically.
Everyone fidgeted like patients suffering acute anxiety. Morbid mutterings, arrhythmic trembling of legs, labored breathing, and melancholy groans erupted from all quarters.
Through it all, Marie continued gazing out the window, remarkably composed amid the bizarre atmosphere.
“Is this your first train journey?” she asked me.
“Why would you ask such a thing?”
“Because you’re trembling violently.”
Indeed I was. With my back deliberately turned from the window, I shook uncontrollably.
Each time the train’s acceleration pressed against my body, I imagined myself being entombed within the leather upholstery. And yet this was hardly my first railway journey!
Before I realized it, we had left the city behind and were speeding through quiet countryside.
To my eyes, everything appeared as an ominous portent. Each pastoral scene flashing past, every moment carrying us further from London seemed like a journey deeper into hell. The station attendant was none other than Charon the ferryman incarnate!
──────WHOOOOOOO!
The whistle’s cry echoed through the carriage. With it, the tension among passengers intensified explosively.
People could no longer sit still, voicing their extreme distress.
“Too fast! Too fast!”
“Stay away from me! Don’t touch me!”
“Father!”
“We must kill them before the creatures from the rear carriage reach us!”
“Cough! Cough cough!“
“You’re the one who should keep away from me!”
“Sit down, child. Sit down. This will pass.”
The train continued its relentless acceleration.
“Why is everyone behaving so strangely?” Marie whispered, pressing slightly against me.
“Has there been an accident?”
“No, not an accident. If the train never stops, it can’t be called an accident, if it never stops… and yet—”
At that moment, words echoed through my mind:
Didn’t I tell you? The SMR Welles never runs late. It doesn’t stop under any circumstances. Never!
I leapt to my feet, crying out:
“It must stop!”
“Master?”
The sensation of speed intensified with each passing second. Eighty-four miles per hour, eighty-five miles per hour, eighty-six miles per hour, eighty-seven miles per hour…
“The train must be stopped!”
Eighty-eight miles per hour.
—THUNK!
The train violently heaved upward, then plunged downward.
“It’s happening again! It’s starting again!”
“No, not this time, please!”
“Darling, I love you.”
“Don’t move from this spot. Not a single step.”
“I love you too. Even if we die, we’ll be together.”
“My hand—my hand is burning!”
“Promise you’ll protect me, I beg you.”
“The window! Look at the window!”
Every head turned simultaneously toward the glass.
In the vast blackness outside, sinister twin stars gleamed mockingly, their cold light seeming to scorn our very existence.
Witnessing this sight, understanding dawned on everyone at once.
“We’re trapped,” I breathed, my voice barely audible.
“The train never stops under any circumstances—if it never reaches its destination, then naturally it will never stop!”
The train does not stop.
“We are prisoners of this moment in time!”
The carriage erupted into a chorus of terrified screams.