All Change

“It’s awfully dark out there.”

John flinched at the sound of her overloud voice. He hated loud people at the best of times, but in the restrictive cigar tube confines of a train carriage it was all too much. He looked around him for the signs that denoted this carriage as a Quiet Zone, but saw none.

That was strange, he always homed in on the Quiet Zone. Even when he was dog tired after a long day at work and trudged to the station on auto pilot. Surely he would have remembered the annoyance and disappointment of either the non-existence of a Quiet Zone, or seeing it rammed to the gunnels with noisy commuters?

Now he came to think of it, he could not remember much of anything at all. A fleeting chill shot through him and he held back the shudder it asked for. He was about to cast his mind further back in search of a salient memory, with the intention of working forward again, when his train of thought was broken by another intrusive voice. This one was a loud man. Of course it was. They hunted in packs, having deafened each other with their inane ramblings, they issued forth to inflict themselves on innocents.

Not that John considered himself innocent, it was just that he didn’t deserve this. What he wanted and thought that he deserved most, was a rest. Some time to himself in the transitory state that was the train journey betwixt his existence as a wage slave and his alternative existence as a house slave. House slave was laying it on a bit thick, but life had a habit of wearing a person down. All of those supposedly little things layering up and over a person until the weight of them smothered and enclosed and pushed downwards into the boggy rut of existence. Caught in the slime of a life rather not lived and seeing nothing but the muddy walls of the rutted self-made prison. John knew that he was destined to become fossilised in this living hell. He wondered whether future generations would dig him up and create a new and interesting history for him. A complete fabrication of a life not lived in order for them to feel better about the drudgery of their own existence.

He thought it likely.

Just as likely as there being a male companion for the female who had already ruined the peace that John quite rightly deserved.

“We’re in a tunnel,” stated the loud man.

John couldn’t help but look towards the source of his annoyance, but the couple were seated diagonally across from him and facing the same way, so he only saw the side of the man and between the seat gap, he caught a glimpse of the woman’s brown hair. They sounded middle aged, and awfully middle class, with the emphasis on awful as far as John was concerned.

“We’ve been in this same tunnel for rather a long time,” countered the woman. 

The man laughed, “you are a doll at times!”

There was the sound of a smack. John thought it was a slap to an arm or leg. Not hard enough to cause pain, but the intent was a warning, not surprisingly via the medium of yet more unnecessary noise, “don’t you laugh at me, you prig!”

“Well, we just happen to be in the world’s longest rail tunnel and you say we’ve been in it for a long time!” the man chuckled again.

“Just how long is the tunnel?” she asked.

And now John was listening intently. Now he wanted to hear the noise that he expected to hear issue forth from the man. Now it was necessary.

“Over thirty miles long. Goes right through the alps. Great bit of engineering and it takes us towards Italy with far less fuss and nonsense than back in the day,” explained the man.

“Marvellous!” said the woman.

This was not marvellous as far as John was concerned. If they were right and this was not their idea of some sort of overly loud joke, then John was on the wrong train. He took in a long, laboured breath. He was not only on the wrong train, he was in the wrong country altogether and he was moving further away from his own country and out towards yet another country. The enormity and insanity of that almost stopped his breath in his chest.

How had that happened?

He stared out of the window as fellow travellers have a wont to do, and all he saw was his washed out and grey reflection. He looked exactly how he felt, and that was not a good thing. It was not good at all. There was something else about that reflection, but he was too distracted by his predicament to attend to it.

Had he had an episode? Was that what this was? Had he finally snapped and walked away from his life? Gone into some sort of catatonic yet active state that had propelled him away from the prison of his own making? Had he made all the necessary arrangements to take him off and away on an adventure, the details of which he was now oblivious? What sort of madness was this?!

Well, if that was the case, then there was a trail. There would be tickets. This reasoning of John’s perked him up and he reached into his inside pocket automatically even as his brain reached these conclusions. The mystery of his being on this train was about to be solved and once he solved that puzzle then he could sort things and get back home.

His hand paused midway, partially under his jacket and touching his chest, looking for all the world like he was having a slow motion heart attack. Another thought had sailed up and taken the foreground in his mind. A thought that was shocking and would not be denied.

Did he actually want to go home?

Really? Did he? There was a reason for him being on this train and he should not ignore that. He might not remember how it was that he had gotten here, but he knew the why of it. He had been haunted by a desperate unhappiness for such a long time that he no longer remembered any other state of being. He played a role and acted as though he was OK, but inside he was numb. Sometimes he had kidded himself that he was empty, but that was not true. It was worse than that. He was filled with an angry sadness and the anger was eating away at him and leaving him embittered as a result.

This time he shuddered. His anger had got to a point where he knew there was no turning back. It cast a shadow inside of him and in that shadow grew a legion of dark thoughts. What was he capable of? He wondered this to himself, but he knew the answer, and now that black out of his worried him. It worried him so much that he looked down at his white shirt and was relieved to see that it was not stained. For one insane moment, in his mind’s eye he had seen blood. So much blood. Gouts of the stuff. More blood than there should have been. He had felt it and in feeling it there was a comprehension of sorts.

He quickly pushed those thoughts away and locked them down. With an effort of will, he returned to his mystery solving. He found that having something to do was usually an adequate, if temporary, distraction.

Reaching into his jacket his hand scrabbled around for an inside pocket that was not there. His throat gave forth with a strange creaking noise as his right hand dropped away and he reached instead with his left hand for the inside pocket on that side of his suit jacket. His relief at finding that pocket was short lived for two reasons. It was empty, and it was also on the wrong side of his jacket. The inside pocket was on the right side of this jacket and it was where he put his mobile and his tickets, if that was, the tickets were not on an app on his phone.

John shook his head as though to clear it, then with both hands he patted the pockets of his trousers. This was a check that he made from time to time and always before he left the house. Patting wallet, house keys and then up to that non-existent inside pocket to pat the missing mobile phone. His trouser pockets should have contained his wallet on the left and his house keys, lip balm and a large hanky on the right.

Nothing.

His pockets were empty, but he plunged his hands in all the same, searching for something, searching for anything, and finding nothing. He licked his dry lips at this discovery. He really needed that lip balm now. His lips always dried when he was in stressful situations. He sniffed, a psychosomatic response to the loss of his handkerchief. 

The search was not at an end though, he was now looking for the aged brown leather satchel he took to and from work each and every day. The bag always sat at his feet, he was never one for the overhead shelf or locker if he could help it. The familiar weight was not at his feet though and he knew it was not there before he even looked down. His head lolled upwards, almost as though he was passing out as his voyage of discovery was apparently leaving him empty handed, but he was looking up at the over head shelf. He could see nothing, so he looked at the window opposite him and the reflection confirmed for him that his bag was not there.

John frantically took stock then, feverishly looking around him at his surroundings and trying to make sense of his predicament. He was fighting wave after wave of panic, driven forth by thought after thought. The unease of being on a train without a ticket was almost too much all on its own, but he was on the wrong train and he had been robbed at some point during a monumental blackout.

Now, as he looked around, he began to realise that it may just be him and the annoyingly loud couple in this carriage. Surely that could not be right? There must be other passengers dotted around. He sat there and pondered this, then got around to probing at his reluctance to leave his seat. He had been ignoring the fear that was gluing him in place and immobilising his legs. His strength had left him and his bones had turned to jelly. He felt the way he had as a small boy, his bladder threatening to release itself to compound his feelings of dread.

He had to push himself up with his arms, gritting his teeth and willing himself on, he staggered even though the train purred along, arrow straight and true. He grabbed at seat backs all the same and made his way along the carriage in the opposite direction to where the couple were seated. Moving away from them was a positive, even though they had not indulged in incessant conversation. 

Not yet anyway.

At this end of the carriage was a door that promised to open out onto the next carriage. The door itself was a little old fashioned and had a metal handle. For such a new carriage, this was odd and out of place and somehow John knew even before he took the handle and pushed it down that the door would not budge. If he had been in any doubt about this, the glass pane in the top of the door told him all he needed to know. The glass looked out onto the inky black of the tunnel and all he saw was his own gaunt, grey face staring back at him with a curious expression and, something that was not quite right in the way that he looked. Again he dismissed this, agitated by the impossible situation that he had found himself in. 

This must be the rear most carriage, he thought to himself as he did an about turn. This would explain its limited occupancy, it was probably the furthest carriage along the platform and too far for most of the passengers to bother with. He had bothered though and that concerned him.

So too had that couple.

He resolved to move up along the train to understand more of his surroundings and situation, this despite the risk he ran of bumping into the ticket inspector. He had heard of Swiss efficiency and this was exemplified with their time pieces, so he expected the consequences of being ticketless were severe. His watch! He hadn’t checked his watch! He raised his left arm as he now walked more confidently along the aisle of the carriage. There was no watch. He sighed and as he passed the couple he lifted his right arm and there it was. On the wrong wrist. 

“How strange,” said the man as John passed the couple, “my watch has stopped!”

John felt a dizzying rush at those words.

“What time does it give?” asked the man’s companion.

“Just after seven fifteen,” said the man and something about his voice was all wrong.

John lunged away from them and this conversation, feeling nauseous and panicked. He kept his right arm up before him as though he were wearing a shield and was pushing on into enemy lines, and in a way he was, for he knew what lay ahead now. Things were coming back to him and as they did, he felt like he was coming apart.

Seven fifteen. He would have been on his regular train for about ten minutes by seven fifteen on any given week night.

He reached the other end of the carriage, relieved to put some distance between himself and that wretched couple. The same door greeted him, with the same incongruous handle and that dark and lifeless glass eyed window that stared all the way inside of him. He saw himself then and he saw who he was and what he had done, and in seeing himself for the third time, he now knew that he was the reflection of that thing that stared in at him from outside the carriage.

“I say!” called the man from behind him, “hello!?” he bellowed more loudly.

John stifled a whimper, trying to hold back the sob that would undo him completely. He froze and shut his eyes tightly, wishing all of this away. Wishing he was not here.

Wishing he had not snapped.

Wishing he hadn’t done it.

He felt a tap on his shoulder.

John was shaking as he turned around, in his mind there was just the one word playing over and over and over…

NONONONONONO…!

He forced his eyes open and put on the bravest face he could. He was used to putting on that false face and now it came more easily to him than it should have.

“Is this yours?” the man asked him.

John followed the direction of the finger that was pointing at his pen. Yes, this was his pen. It had been a present from his wife for his fiftieth birthday. A present for work. Because that was all he had and that was all he was. Work, work, bloody work. He had nothing else in his life and he was nothing else. He was nothing. He worked and he tread ceaselessly on that treadmill right up until he had snapped and plunged that pen into this noisy and annoying man’s neck…

He wouldn’t shut up!

He just would not shut up!

I had to make him stop!

I had to make them all…

STOP!

Behind the man, John knew that the woman would be sat exactly how she had been when he had finished with her. Her head twisted at an unnatural angle and her neck broken. He’d seen it happen, but it did not feel like it had been him doing it. He’d been a passenger then and he was a passenger now…

A passenger in a train travelling forever, through an endless dark nothingness.

This was his escape from the life he’d grown to hate.

Still trapped and with nowhere to go.

That was when their endless chatter began, growing impossibly louder and louder and louder until it filled the carriage and pierced John like a thousand shards of glass.