Last Train To Davos

The grime on the glass from a thousand greasy fingers distorted the dismal scene outside. "Can you believe people used to breathe that stuff? It's so thick I can't see; that is a city, isn't it?" Thomas spoke to nobody in particular.

The woman in the aisle seat wiped the sweat from under her numerous chins and grunted, pointing at a red dot moving along a line displayed on a digital map. Paris, it said. Faint shadows hide in a dark thick swirling smog.

"Have you ever been there? I heard it was beautiful once." The bleak scenery made even uncomfortable idle conversation preferable over staring out into the mid-afternoon darkness.

She lumbered to stand, then plopped back down heavily and retorted, "Just how old do you think I am? Yea, I heard the stories, but I took this train to and from school when young; nothing has ever changed much except the heat." She reached past Thomas to touch the smooth composite wall. "They say this thing is insulated, pressurized and airtight, but I swear I feel it seeping in. Sorry, I'm Sherry, headed to Germany, I'm afraid, this time permanently."

"Thomas, Switzerland, and it looks like I'm going long term too. There isn't much to return to; I boarded on the Scottish coast." She just nodded sadly, aware of what that meant.

"Do you think it's true?" They asked each other in unison. 

Thomas laughed, "Well, it could be. With high mountain air, fewer roads, and even less industry, I doubt it's safe to spend much time outdoors, but it would be nice to look out a window and see more than a meter or two. I mean, look out there; my senses indicate from the sound of the tracks, and the reduced speed, that we are on a bridge. Can you tell me, are we over a road, river, or gorge?"

She pointed at the dot on the screen. "River, see, it's the blue line right there."

Thomas scrubbed the window with his sleeve. "That is my point. Our only frame of reference for what lies outside is a blue line on a screen. I must be older than you. I remember riding this train for the first time as a child. Windows let you look out onto the world. My first trip was when in school, to see the coronation of the last of the royals. I stared, looking out the entire way. There was so much to look out on, orchards, rivers, mountains, and towns. Towns with people who walked outside! I swear it was real; I didn't make it up."

Sherry sniffed, rubbing her nose, "Relax, mister, er, um, Thomas. My mom told me about the outside. She remembered the outside fondly. She died from cancer when I was eleven. I think I was even outside once, but I don't know. For as long as I remember, I only had the screens to tell me how bad it's become." She twisted her arm to reveal the screen on her wrist. Red letters flashed. 'Co2 levels: unsurvivable, O2 levels: minimal, heat index: dangerous beyond short exposure.' 

Thomas lifted his left arm, "Yea, I got one too, but I don't know why; it has only changed once in the past year."

Sherry shrugged. "Yea, they said that was a glitch, but I am not so confident. Oxygen levels undetectable set off such a panic. It would be much simpler to reprogram the display than replace billions of tons of atmospheric gasses."

The windows darkened, and the interior lights flickered on. Thomas pressed his face against the window. "Sunset? Already? I know we are racing east at a thousand kilometers an hour, but isn't that too soon?"

Sherry tapped the screen aggressively. "Red dot, red dot, what aren't you following? 14:27 Gmt arrival Berlin, Germany. That's not a sunset, just the last working city; it kept producing goods even after 2060."

Thomas whistled. "2060? Really? That's impressive. I wasn't aware of any city except Dubai and San Diego that didn't get abandoned after the '45 summit. Even as far back as '38, the domes were the major population centers."

Sherry withdrew a book from beneath her thigh. Her sweat had wrinkled the cover. "I used to watch the archives to pass the time. It got too depressing, seeing the things that I would never see again. Fantasies that never had been I miss less when taken away. Now give a good book any day."

"Archives? I'm not sure what you mean. I brought a book too—Hemingway. An escape into a world you know is gone is as depressing as the gray soup we now pass through." Thomas's book remained unopened. 

"Geez, you are dense. How do you take this train and not know the archives?" Sherry tapped the screen at the top right corner, the archives icon glowed, and the map disappeared, replaced with a scene of greenery. The woods raced by, and a date in the corner listed a time stamp from seventy-six years ago. "Hemingway? Are you crazy? No, it would be best if you escaped into fantasy." She wiped the sweat between her breasts and blushed, "or a steamy, trashy romance novel."

"Wait, are you saying this," Thomas tapped the screen, "was filmed out there?" His eyes darted from the forest on the screen to the lifeless swirling sludge the bullet train penetrated, sending off eddies in the blackened cloud. He could not rectify the scene was the same, separated by a mere seventy-six years. 

The brown water in the glass on the tray tilted slightly towards the back of the train. "Where in Germany are you going? Either we are accelerating, or we just started climbing into the Alps." The screens on every chair back, whether in archive or map mode, confirmed the climb into the foothills.

Sherry looked Thomas over curiously. "You care where I'm going? I have nowhere to go, just plenty to run from; I'm just chasing a rumor. Naples went under, and we fled to the domes outside Lisbon. Lisbon burned, and we escaped to Lyon and more dorm domes. One town after another became rubble. This line loops France through northern Germany, south into Austria, then into Switzerland, Italy, and back to France. Germany isn't the destination per se; I am just going till I find a place to stop. Worse comes to worst, and I end up where I started, and the train ticket is cheaper than a week's rent."

Thomas glared at her. He grabbed her thick dripping shoulders. "Rumors? What rumors? Look, woman, you heard it as well? Snow, cold, and even clean air?"

"I thought he was a crazy man, talking about clean air and sunshine. I knew he was a liar when he said there were fish..." Sherry looked pensive and disturbed. "Then again, I had never seen anyone in my life who spent enough time outside to get a suntan, let alone get burned. That is except for him."

The red dot dinged past Davos, and their eyes swung to the window. "Did you see that? A house! That was over fifteen meters away. I can see!"