The Time I Spent on Train Car 8

As I walked into the station, a crowd of school children swarmed the nearest train; excitedly running and jumping onto it as if imagining themselves outlaws riding the rails in the dead of night to towns unknown, or else having just narrowly escaped the dreaded clutches of the law after robbing the nearest bank. A flustered school teacher followed behind, attempting to corral them into a single car like so many unheeding sheep. I couldn’t help but think that if the day continued on as it was clearly starting out, the battle of wills that would ensue could only end in a glorious and swift victory for the children. To be fair, no sane, self-respecting adult would stand a chance. 

After reviewing the timetable, I realized with trepidation that the train that was now overrun with all manner of unruly heathen children was the very same train I would need to board to reach my destination. In vain, I tried to find a car that was free of their menace. After resigning myself to a car with as few of their number as possible, I turned and stared at the blissfully empty and child-free platform just outside my window. I could see it, but I couldn’t possess it; watch it, but not experience it for myself. It was an unlikely Eden, and I was banished from its quiet shores.

I couldn’t bear to look too long at all that couldn’t be and turned my attention back to the car in which I found myself caged for the next few hours just as the train began to pull out of the station. Although there were less than 5 in the car, they managed to make more noise and exist in a greater capacity than thrice their number of grown adults could ever have managed. I tried to maintain my previous view on their behavior and who was to blame. However, when more of them ran screeching and cackling into my train car, my previous feelings of generosity towards their teacher vanished. Fairness flew out the window, and I blamed her entirely for not being able to keep all 40 or so of them in check.

Within what felt like only minutes, our – the other passengers and myself – reality became a hellish nightmare from which there was no escape. Without the meanest hint of apology or even an awareness of the rights of those around them, they began to take over the car. Claiming it for their own and doing as they pleased with each and every seat, sandwich, and person in its hold. I watched as the scene before me unfolded into the kind of unstoppable chaos only children can create, and I was left to assume that the other heathens were wreaking similar havoc in each and every car along the train.

But even amongst the mayhem, I couldn’t shake the tiny hope in my breast that the teacher might still come and bring order to her charges. After all, they were her responsibility. Before I boarded the train, such thoughts seemed wholly rational and my mind refused to believe their impossibility.

Finally, one brave soul, an elderly woman who regrettably felt herself very much up to the challenge these miscreants presented, tried to put an end to their warlording. But one of the littlest ones gave her a swift kick to the knee right in the middle of her speech about the importance of good behavior, and I could have sworn the fall of Rome must have been no less tragic than her crumpled face lying so close to the dirt on the train floor – no doubt left by one or another of our new overlord’s mud-stained, untied shoes – as she held her leg in agony, unable to bring herself to even a seated position, let alone return to the former glory she had enjoyed only moments before as she stood over us all.

The hope within me was dashed to pieces with her fall, and I realized the insanity of my former thoughts. The children’s reign was as inevitable as the deaths of every man, woman, and child below the mountain of Vesuvius the moment it had decided to blow. And now, with the fall of their only challenger, their victory was indisputable.

None of the other passengers dared go to the woman’s aid, and I personally would rather have jumped from the speeding train and snapped my neck cleanly in two on the hillside below than risk the ire of the tiny sovereigns of train car #8. 

At each stop, their debauchery was rewarded with new subjects to terrorize and from which to demand fealty. While initially charmed by the children’s “antics” and “games”, these fools realized their mistaken assessment of the situation only too late. The car doors were shut and the train was speeding along before the truth of it hit them full in the face, or rather, for one unlucky passenger, it was a soggy slice of tomato from an unsatisfactory luncheon sandwich that slapped across her cheek as thunderous applause broke out among the insatiable beasts. She sat as still and unmoving as possible as the tomato slid from her face and onto the floor beneath her seat. Like the rest of us, her unresponsiveness was a clear attempt to be overlooked by the train car’s feral dictators.

As the train took us further and further from its initial harbor, we waited with a collective, bated breath to see what would befall the first person who tried to exit the train car. Each subsequent stop was one step closer to the guillotine that waited for each of our necks, and yet there was a palpable excitement to watch as the first of us was merciless beheaded.

When the train reached Turin, the blood drained from my face as I realized I would be the first to incur their unchecked wrath. As quickly as I could, I clutched my bag to my chest in a defensive manner, and made for the door like an escaped prisoner of war. I had just reached the door when the first apple smashed against the car’s hull only inches from my head. Not wanting to give the others a chance to strike true, I bolted out the door and stumbled into the sunny freedom of the station. 

But like so many others before me, I turned to look one last time at the cage in which I had only moments before been imprisoned. The anger on their faces followed me out of the station. I was lucky, nothing more. They hadn’t been prepared for an escape. They weren’t ready when I took my chance, but I knew with absolute certainty that the next escapee wouldn’t be so lucky.