Newton's Cradle and a Rat

“We’re running out of time!” Ding* Ding*  “we’re running out of time!”  Ding* Ding*.  

Yasha looked up at the other side of the door’s threshold as he climbed up the short stairs into the passenger car. There was a small cat standing on its hind legs, similar to the way a person would. It was dressed in a blue train conductor's uniform and it was covered in white fur with a few black spots, including one on its eye.

“We’re running out of time!” It squeaked again. “The doors are closing! We need to stay on schedule! We can’t be late to the next stop!….we’re going to be late!!”

Yasha looked up. He was having an internal debate with himself. He wanted to ask the cat where the train was going, but he also wanted to ask the cat where it learned to speak. 

But just as he opened his mouth to speak, the cat suddenly got on all fours. It started looking around the room, and purred, almost as if it had not been speaking perfect Japanese just moments before. 

After a few more seconds, it turned around and went into the hole in the wall that was perfectly sized for an ordinary cat. After it disappeared into the darkness, several pawfuls of kitty litter were flung from the darkness and landed where it was previously standing.

Yasha stood there trying to process what had just happened. He looked around, and he noticed that the inside of the wagon was almost completely silent. He didn’t notice when he initially walked in, because the cat was talking. But now he was aware of the eerie silence. Not even the passenger car itself made a noise as it rocked back and forth. The only thing he could hear was a light “click”, as if two small metal objects were softly hitting against each other.

*click *click *click *click 

The entrance to the passenger car was at the very back, but the noise seemed to be coming from the very front of the car. Though not sure why, Yasha started walking towards the noise. The seats were green and stitched with gold lace. They were made of very nice leather, like the kind that you would find on a seat in the office and of a prestigious law firm.

These are very nice seats for a regular passenger train. I must be in first class, he thought to himself.

The carpet was purple, and it didn’t feel like an ordinary carpet. He lightly grazed it while he was walking. It was more than comfortable enough to sleep on. He could have easily slept on it without a pillow or blanket.

The other end of the passenger car didn’t seem far away. But he began questioning the situation when he noticed after 10 minutes, he still hadn’t reached he hadn’t reached the end of the car. 

He broke into a light jog. 

As he was jogging, he looked out the car windows. Outside he could see that they were in some sort of forest, but it was unlike any forest he had ever seen in Japan or anywhere else. The trees were of normal size, but the material they were made of looked unusual. 

They were shaped like ordinary Cherry and Japanese Maples, but they were not made of wood. The bodies and trunks of the trees were made of whitw marble. And the leaves were shaped ordinarily. But something about them caught his attention, at least enough to make him stop jogging and approach one of the windows. 

He pressed his hands and nose against the glass. Something was glittering in the dusk sun. He took a closer look because what he thought it was, didn’t sound consistent with reality. 

The leaves were made of crystals.

It was either crystals, rubies, or both? he thought.

He attempted to open the window, but it wouldn’t move. There were signs to both the left and right of the window: 

“To open the window, fill out form W-29 ½ and submit it to your local window officer for approval.”

What’s a window officer, he thought to himself. 

Yasha turned around to continue his jog to the end of the passenger car. But his first swift step abruptly ended. 

He was already there.

The wall was less than a meter from his face. The only thing between him and the wall was a small table that came up to about his chest. On that table was the source of the noise: 

*Tap, *Tap, *Tap, *Tap

He looked down at the table. Immediately he knew what the device causing the noise was. His physics teacher made a point to make sure of that. “The colonel”, as the kids called due to his military background, had the same device on his desk. Whenever there was a pop quiz, he would activate the device. The students considered it stupid, annoying, and dusteacting. 

Newton’s Cradle

For those of you who don’t know what this is, don’t worry. You’re probably just a regular person. Regular people have things to do and lives to live. The people who get excited simply by reading anything that references “Newton’s Cradle” are likely irritating to the common individual to begin with.

It’s a series of metal balls hanging from a string. The way it works is that you pull one of the balls at either end. What happens is when the ball is released, it hits the next ball. The energy from that ball would be transferred to all of the other balls. Once the energy hit the last ball, that ball would fly up, fall back, and hit the other balls. The process would then repeat itself.

Yasha looked at the small device. It brought up a feeling inside him. It was a strange feeling of disgust, contempt, and unhappiness. Why was he feeling this way? Maybe it was because he had a bad experience in physics class. 

*click, *click, *click, *click

Maybe it was the noise. It wasn’t loud and obnoxious like a lawnmower. But it was just as irritating. It was the auditory equivalent of dripping water on your hand for a prolonged period of time. A drop by itself isn’t bad, but after a certain period of time it becomes Chinese water torture .

He couldn’t take it anymore. He slowly reached out his hand. To his surprise, he was hesitant about it. Why did he care? What’s the worst that could happen if he stopped it?

*click, *click, c—-

He grabbed the ball with his thumb and index finger. He immediately felt better. He turned around to walk down to the other cars. He had momentary feeling off terror - similar to that feeling when you were a kid and leaning on the back to legs of your chair. You lose control for a split second. But by the time that feeling of terror hits your conscious brain, your unconcius brain makes your hands grab the endge if the table in front of you.

It was a giant rat. But it was standing on its hind legs. But what was even stranger, was the rat was wearing the clothes of a train ticket collector. It had blue pants, blue coat, and blue hat that had a yellow stripe going down the side.

“Why did you do that?”, said the rat.