The Train
by VicK Kiff

There was no up.
There was no down
There was simply the endless blackness in his mind and in his eyes. It was this that set him apart from everyone and everything. Nothing lived within this darkness; nothing could survive; and because of it, he had decided to go home to die.
He would never again know the endless colours of the sea as it stretched beyond a horizon that always seemed too near. Nor would he ever see a sail as it billowed brilliant white against storm tossed clouds or lazy blue skies. The colours of Jezebel red and the subtle tints and hues of auburn coloured or jet black hair, were painful memories. The stark colours of winter, the seductive colours of spring, had become haunting shadows to him. Everything that he had ever been able to see before his sight was taken from him, anything that had meant something to him as a person who could see, was gone.
He missed the slash of colour on a woman's lips, of being able to see the fullness of her breasts as they moved beneath her blouse as she walked. All that was left were his imaginings. Visions of the curve of a woman's hip and the way her legs could move the flowing fabric of a skirt, both hiding and revealing that moist, warm, hidden place beneath her clothing.
As if in apology, his senses assaulted him with a riot of smells and sounds that overwhelmed him at times. Only now, three weeks after his release from the hospital, was he learning to separate and identify the different sounds and textures he felt and heard. But he would never be comfortable with the smelling or the touching of a thing — he wanted to see.
Because he could no longer see, he tried to bury himself in the emptiness and blackness of sleep. He wanted to believe that this was simply a dream or nightmare that would end when he awoke. There could be no life, no reality without light. What made things, people, real, vibrant, and alive, was beholding them with your eyes as well as touching, smelling, or hearing life as it lived and continued all around him.
So from the moment he awoke, to the moments when exhaustion overtook him and he felt his eyelids dutifully close over his useless eyes, he fought against the knowledge of what he had become. He fell asleep to the laughing whisper in his mind that he would see in the morning. But when he awoke, it was not to the light of his surroundings, but to sounds wrapped in the shroud of blackness.
He screamed only once in the weeks past. Out of fear. Out of rage. But the scream became a moan of unbearable agony. He was lost because the blackness did more than isolated him from others, it separated him from himself; and he was truly alone.
Unable to cope, he had tried to drown himself in liquor. And when that had not worked, with drugs. Finally there had been the overdose that he hoped would end even the blackness he could see. But that had not sufficed for he had failed. So now he was aboard a train that would take him home, because there was no other place to go and because the doctors thought familiar things might settle him again or bring him peace.
It was a tired, cranky old train. It had seen the best and the worst that life could offer and yet it continued to exist. It made far too many stops as it crossed the plains and headed into the mountains. It was sweltering in the summer; bone chillingly cold in winter. The company that operated it always seemed to be right on the edge of bankruptcy, but like its namesake, continued to survive. The Train was notoriously slow and it forced you to dwell upon the vista of the countryside. The towns it stopped in became not mere collections of buildings huddled together, but places with distinctive personalities and emotions. There was time to think, consider and feel, to enjoy the slowness of time.
The Train's competitor was called the Orion Express. It was all gleaming steel, with overstuffed seats, heated and air conditioned, and hooded and dark tinted glass for windows. There were pictures on the walls and bulkheads of the world outside. It was a self contained train that insulated you from the imperfections of the earth and muffled the sounds of the wind with its own sound. Its very speed and impersonality shielded you from that which you might have seen. There was no need to struggle to feel pain or anguish; all that was required was that you exist. Everything else would be provided for you.
Perhaps I should have taken The Orion, he thought. But he shook his head no. Without his sight, something had died in him and he wanted to feel something, anything, other that the ever deepening chasm in his soul. So he was aboard the ancient old train, letting the latent images in his mind supply the vistas he could not see. The swaying of the coach, the stuttering of the train, the muffled noise of the rail car, the rumbled vibrations, brought him a measure of comfort as he sat alone in the darkness of the car and of himself.
The Train made its last stop at Dunstable before heading into the plains and the darkness of night. They sat in the old station for what seemed to be an hour. Then a distant moan from the engine's steam whistle, a savage jerk, and The Train was again moving through the country side.
In his mind he could see beyond the observation windows and see the struggle between winters reluctant grasp to loosen its hold and springs demand to bring new life to the land. There would be patches of snow or ice that gleamed brightly beneath a silken moon. But the first early bloom of flowers and trees, hidden now by the night, would stand defiant in the darkness as they awaited the light. They were unafraid to face the coming dawn. The air smelled clean, with a hint of a bite, even within the confines of the rail car. All this, in the thinking and imagining of them, gave him a kind of peace until he heard the door to the car open and close.
He stiffened. He did not turn towards the sound. He did not wish to be seen as he was — he did not want to deal with a stranger's pity; he wanted to be alone. After a moment, he smelled a woman's perfume on the breeze — a faint lilac smell — even before he heard her sharp, staccato footsteps draw near over the noise of the rail car.
He heard her mutter under her breath, "What happened to the damned lights in this thing?"
"Oh, excuse me," she said as she discovered him. "I…I didn't think anyone was here."
"There is," he said simply.
"What happened to the lights?"
"Nothing," he said quietly as he turned toward her voice. He would have left it at that, but the scent of her perfume and old memories made him want to talk to her. "I asked the conductor to leave the overhead off." He was going to say that it did not matter because he was blind, but instead he added: "The reading lights will still be working though."
She was close to him. He could feel the warmth from her body as she moved to the seats across from him.
"Why is that?" she said. As she sat down, he heard the rustle of cloth against nylon.
"Because I'm--" he started to say. "I like the darkness. You can see the wilderness better without the glare of the compartment lights. This stretch is particularly nice, I think," as he saw it once again in his mind.
The seat squeaked as she moved in her seat." I suppose you're right. I hadn't really noticed."
Her voice was hard. A businesswoman's voice, but there was a note of softness too, he thought, as he listened to her. He heard something else, but he was not certain what it was.
"Where are you headed?" he asked finally when the silence between them became uncomfortable.
"I'll be getting off at Carlisle. I missed the Orion Express. Now I've got to settle for this monstrosity."
He turned away from her as he heard her switch on the overhead reading lamp above her seat.
"Well, this train isn't so bad," he remarked flatly. "It'll get you to where you're going."
"Yes," she said after a moment. "Yes, I suppose it will."
The seat she was on groaned again and it seemed as if she were standing for when she spoke, her voice came from above him. "Are there any magazines in here?"
Was she tall? No, he considered. She seemed of average height, perhaps no more than five foot six or seven; at the most, five eight. He wondered what colour hair she had. Blonde? No, he hated blondes. It seemed every woman he had ever known wanted to be blonde. He preferred darker hair. Brunettes or chestnut colour hair; or a raven haired woman with eyes that flashed and warm, golden hued skin.
"Yes," he said as he remembered trips from another time. "There should be some in the racks at the other end of the car."
"Thanks."
He listened to the rhythm of her walk. It was purposeful, but somewhat halting and unsure as the train jerked and swayed. And there was another sound he could not place.
For some odd reason he thought of panty hose. Yes, that was it: the sound he heard as she walked, found something and returned, was the whisper of panty hose, her thighs brushing together as she walked.
The seat squeaked again as she sat down. "There wasn't much there. Some old 'Field and Stream's,' a 'Time,' and something else."
He tried to laugh, but it was forced. "Not many people like to read I think. There's probably a newspaper about somewhere, but I wouldn't vouch for the date."
There was silence for a moment, then she laughed. "Oh, that's good. Perfect." She sighed. "That's the first time I've really found something humorous. The first time in months."
"Why is that?"
He heard her breath in deeply and he imagined her breasts rising and thrusting forward, then settling back again. He wondered what were their shape and size. It had never mattered before. Each woman he had ever loved had been different. He had been able to see and caress her breasts with his eyes as well as with his fingers and palms.
Some had sensitive breasts. A fingertip moved gently across the skin would raise little goose bumps. With others, the colour around the nipple would begin to darken as the nipple rose to attention. And with still others, there would be nothing until his mouth descended upon them and he drew the tightening, stiffening, bud into his mouth.
But those were things he did. It was seeing the beauty of a woman, her body revealed to his eyes, that seemed so utterly amazing. Then seeing all of her: the curve of her buttocks, the triangled delta of her vagina, a singular beauty that aroused him. His heart beat silently and he found it hard to swallow. Funny, after all this time, I thought I was more of a leg man. Guess I was wrong.
"I'm going home. Or at least I'm going back to Carlisle, a place I used to call home," she said.
"Sounds as if you've personal business to attend to there."
"Yes," she said absently as her voice drifted into silence. "Yes. Business. I'm going back to sign the papers for my divorce."
He did not know how to respond, so he said nothing. He could hear her breathing. It was no longer even, but hesitant and shallow. He wondered in that brief moment of hearing, if she were afraid to face her past, rather than her future.
"Difficult divorce?"
After a moment, she said, "Yes. In a way."
The Trains whistle sounded and echoed out over the plain. Two quick blasts. Silence. Two more quick blasts, then there was the rapid clanging of a crossing bell that came and went in his blackness.
"In a way," she repeated, her voice barely audible. It seemed he heard all the bitterness and sadness and loss she was feeling as she spoke.
She laughed abruptly, but it was a strangled sound coming from her throat. "Jack and me," she said wistfully. "We were childhood sweethearts. That's really all you can be in a small burg like Carlisle."
He nodded in the darkness.
"I went to college on the coast and he stayed here. When I came back, he was the only one left of the gang we ran around with. I guess it was natural that we would hook up again. We got married." Her voice drifted away into silence.
"What happened?"
"What always happens. There's not much to do in Carlisle except screw around and he did it with abandon. If it wore a skirt, sooner or later he would be lifting it," she said with bitterness. "I retaliated by sleeping around myself. But you know something, I still loved him."
He did not say anything, just listened as she continued.
"Look at me."
His breath caught in his throat as he turned his face towards where her voice was coming from.
"I'm not so bad looking."
The words stabbed him deeply as he looked away. He wished he could see her. A person's voice, a woman's voice, could not tell you how she looked or seemed, but it could tell you what she must be within herself. Despite the anger, bitterness, even the tones of hurt, she sounded beautiful.
"No," he said softly. "You're not, as if it ever mattered."
"At first, everything was perfect. My parents had an old place they gave us. It wasn't much. It was a struggle to make ends meet. But you know, we had fun."
He nodded slightly. He did not want to hear anything else and yet he did. He wanted to hear her voice, listen to the music that had crept into it as she remembered.
"The only bad thing was we discovered I couldn't have children. Bad plumbing," she joked. "I hope that doesn't bother you, talking about a woman's internals."
He laughed. "Not in the slightest. This is an enlightened age."
"Yes, it is," she chuckled. He loved that sound, her laugh. It seemed to come from deep within and again he wondered what she might really look like.
"I guess we both thought that without that pressure, we could do anything. And we did. There were times when Jack came home for lunch and would call in and take the afternoon off. We'd get in the car and go down by the river. Everybody went there and parked. We necked and necked and then it would get really serious," she laughed.
Always in the past, there was that moment, he thought, that singular moment.
It came after kisses that grew ever more passionate. It came after hands had begun to mold the others' body. Stroking, rubbing, seeking places hidden away beneath a layer of clothing, building a sensuous heat with a fire that grew hotter and hotter.
It flared as the moment finally came. Buttons and zippers were undone and the coverings that concealed a woman's body were tossed away. That was when you could see her with your eyes, taste her body with your lips, explore her with your tongue and fingers.
"Jack was a good lover. He knew how to please me. I loved to see the expression on his face when we were fooling around. Half pain and mad passion. I loved it..."
Even though your eyes were closed as you kissed her, you could still see her, moving beside you. You could hear her cries of passion and agony. When his mouth found the valley between her breasts, she would arch into him, head thrown back and her legs would part, allowing his hand to find and enter her depths. In moments, his mouth and tongue would find and drink of those waters of arousal. Then he would find and discover a pearl of desire that he would inhale into his mouth and caress with his tongue, even as his fingers rose within her and curled upward, stroking her so gently, so softly, then firmly as her body moved against his own.
"...I'd had oral sex with guys in college, but I didn't really count that as sex per se," she said. "But with Jack," she sighed, "with Jack it was making love. I loved the expression on his face at times, particularly when we got naked in the back of the car..."
That moment of rising heat came again when her mouth found and drew him deep into her mouth. Her fingers and palm and tongue would caress him, and the melody of his stiffened arousal would begin to well within him.
"...And then we would be making love and the car would be rocking. Whew. Those were times..."
The Moment came again when she lay beneath him, seemingly defenseless, but so powerful. He could see the rapid rising of her breasts as she breathed, feel the heat of longing within the vision of beauty beneath him and within himself. God he wanted her, wanted to be, needed to be, deep with in her. Her half closed eyelids would flutter open and she would see him and in her eyes was the passion filled invitation to merge with her as he lowered himself on her body. As she guided him into her depths, their bodies would merge tightly as they moved and their hips met and danced together.
A small sob escaped him.
"Are you all right?"
He cleared his throat, but his voice was husky as he said. "Ah, yes. Slight frog in my throat."
"God, why am I telling you this?"
"Strangers can tell other strangers things they wouldn't tell their friends," he said softly as tears welled in his useless eyes. "We'll never see each other again so we feel kind of safe revealing little things about ourselves."
"Yes. I think your right." She sighed."
"Well," she continued, "I guess making love to me got tiresome and he started sleeping around. I did too and that was how I met Greg. Greg is a beautiful man. I love his eyes. They're brown and deep and I can just simply drown in them. That's why I wanted to get to Carlisle as quickly as I could so I can get back to him."
"I...I think I know what you mean."
The door opened and the conductor came up to them. "You okay, Matt?"
He simply nodded.
"Ah Miss, your stop is coming up in a couple minutes." As the conductor walked away, she moved on the seat. It seemed that she had turned fully to face him. He remained sitting as he was as her perfume wafted over him and he listened to the sound of her clothing whispering as she stood.
"Well listen, it was nice talking to you. Oh, my name is Marge. What's yours?"
"Matt. Matthew."
"I wanted to thank you for listening to me. I know it sounds pretty inane to be upset about coming back to Carlisle, but that's the way things are. And after all that I told you," she sounded sheepish. "You sometimes forget the good times for all the pain you suffer."
"Yes. I suppose so."
She hesitated a moment, then said: "Telling you all that, watching the world through the window slip by...well, don't feel quite so upset now.
There was nothing he could say to her as his own pain and loneliness rose in him.
"Well, Carlisle is just a couple of minutes away, so I'll say good bye. You have a pleasant trip and you're right, I think I did prefer the trip in the semi darkness. I never realized how serene the countryside can be from a slow moving train. I think Greg and I will take it when we come to visit my parents."
"Good luck to you," he managed to say as the whistle moaned again and the train pulled into the station.
They stopped only long enough to let off a few passengers and then The Train was on its way once again. After another hour, he too was home, and the tears and blackness cradled him gently in their arms.