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By Albert Creak
Artwork by Bridget O’Leary
They’re a nefarious breed. Their rodent features are unmistakable and their dialect is a sharp, gurgling cluster of consonants difficult even for locals — and unintelligible to foreigners. Whenever their mouths open, it sounds as if they are trying to loosen phlegm from their throats. The Train People are hated and hateful. Passengers, both local and foreign, are their victims. It’s wise to avoid interaction.
We pressed against each other for heat, squeezing into the lower bunk rather than climbing to the cold individual berths above. It had taken us weeks in the capitol to obtain the necessary foreigners’ traveler permits. Undoubtedly the Train People knew for whom the cabin was reserved. Perhaps they had intentionally neglected to supply us with bedding. Asking would have been pointless. Either way, the cold vinyl and poorly sealed windows made sleeping alone impossible. They no longer allowed the rental of warm animals to foreigners. A local passenger had contracted syphilis the winter before, which was almost unheard of in this land. It was rumored the beast he slept with had recently been used by a foreigner. So, we huddled together like piglets at a sow.
Bundled as we were in layers of flannel, wool and down, the four of us barely fit along the compartment wall. Day came. Several hours later it went again. The fog of our breath swirled in front of us, shifted, and was whisked away by the draft.
Each time the train stopped we anxiously compared the hieroglyphic clutter displayed on the station signs with our handwritten note from the capital, ready to dash out of the compartment and off the train when the two matched. But it wasn’t that simple. One part seemed alike, but another didn’t. Even in daylight it had been difficult to see out the frosty window, much less make out the intricacies of that godforsaken script. The more we rubbed at the windows with our mittens, the more obscured our view of the platform signs became. The arc at the top of one symbol was more pointed on the note, or the “x” on the note looked more like a “+” on the sign, or two parts of a glyph from the note were connected by a line that might or might not have been intentional.
The idea of stranding ourselves at the end of the line — to wait out the winter in the village of the Train People — filled us with dread. In that event, our only hope would be in appealing to their famously nonexistent sense of pity. Everyone has heard stories of foreigners unfortunate enough to land themselves in that situation—stories of forced labor, all manner of prostitution and brutal gang-rapings.
Each stop caused a quarrel amongst us; we almost came to blows more than once. Someone would inevitably be certain the sign outside matched the crumpled note that we passed back and forth. Someone else would just as surely deny it. Locals scrambled off, the Train People shouted, we argued, and the train would pull away. The dim light of the station disappeared behind us and the world outside the window washed black. The occasional faint yellow glint in the darkness indicated a village or small town in the distance, but for the most part there may as well have been a layer of tar smeared over the outside of the window. Leaning forward to stare out the window, we found only our own unkempt, imbecile reflections staring back. We were relieved to see locals in the corridor, still curled up asleep under pieces of cardboard or burlap sacks. Eventually, we also slept.
I’m jolted awake as the train whines to a stop and lets out an exhausted wheeze. The others are already up. I follow their smitten gazes out the window. There’s no need to look at the sign, or the note. The window is coated in beads of melted frost.
Outside in the morning light, the faces on the platform lack the refined features we’ve seen at previous stations and back in the capital. These faces are twisted and shriveled like dried fruit: the faces of the diseased, the starving. But unlike the resigned countenances I’ve encountered in other parts of this poor land, these worn faces are offset by eyes that glimmer with a hyena-like caginess. A woman, perhaps fifty years of age — it is difficult to tell with the Train People — catches us peering out the window. Pulling a fur scarf from over her mouth, she shouts to the others on the platform. I watch her wrinkled face light up. Her toothless mouth opens and closes. All is silent inside the compartment. A crowd gathers on the platform next to our car, pressing towards the window and squinting in at us. We dare not to speak, or even move.
There is a snorting in the corridor and lumbering, uneven footsteps. I turn to see a thin white-haired man, dressed in the poorly-fitted green uniform of the Train People. He’s clutching a mop with both hands, and the first smile I’ve ever seen on one of their faces cuts across his face like an incision.
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