The Train

Trigger warning: loss of human agency

The sound of a piercing train whistle jolted Viet from his slumber. He opened his eyes slowly, taking in his surroundings. He wondered why he'd woken up on a steam train. He was seated in a steam train carriage, with the wheels chugging beneath his feet. Looking out the square window beside him, he saw vast green fields with cows grazing in the distance. The train seemed to have disrupted their feeding, as they glanced towards Viet's carriage before slowly fading from view.

As Viet glanced down at his wristwatch, he realised it wasn't ticking. Even if it had been, he couldn't have told the time—there were no numbers on the face; the hour markers were exactly the same; the minute and hour hands looked identical. He stared at the hands—which remained motionless and separated by a one-minute gap—, waiting for some sort of movement. But even if they had moved, it would have been too dark to see. Outside the window, the sky was cloudless and sunless, and the carriage was lit by a somber light.

Viet decided to stand up and move around, but his legs were stiff, and his hips were unable to rotate, and he couldn't even bend forward to stand up. Panic began to rise within him as he involuntarily let out a loud “A” sound. He was then relieved that he could still speak, but frustrated that he couldn't stand up. “This is agonising,” he grumbled.

“You're making noises,” a gruff voice said. A female voice.

“May I ask who this is?” Viet spoke up.

“Please don't speak loudly; you're absolutely okay,” said a woman's voice.

“I'm sorry.” Viet spoke softer, “But where are you?”

“Up here. Please look up a bit.”

Viet looked up at the brown ceiling of the carriage. The gruff voice had come from the round speaker. Was there someone at the other end of the speaker? How could she hear him speak? And how could she even see him? There must have been someone on the train observing him, aware of his difficult situation, and asking him not to be noisy. Viet reminded himself to stay calm and not be afraid. He was certain he was still alive.

As he gazed out the window, the green fields had given way to a long running stretch of rocks, dotted with black and white stones, trembling as the train passed. The train was now running faster than before, and Viet saw the black and white of the rocks blending together, weaving into a grey area. The sound of the rocks crunching under the weight of the train filled the carriage, and Viet felt the slight vibration beneath his feet.

Now that the window was all grey, Viet stopped looking out and looked back in. It's best to lean back in the chair. It's comfortable. He felt more comfortable sitting down than trying in vain to stand up on the narrow aisle between the rows of seats in the carriage, which was only five or seven steps long.

There seemed to be no one else in the carriage except Viet. He sat in the third seat row out of five. In front of him was a door leading to another carriage, or he might be sitting in the first carriage, and the door might lead to the driver’s compartment. But he didn't need to know anymore; he couldn't stand up anyway. So, he spoke up.

“Is anyone here?”

“This is your carriage,” the female voice on the speaker replied promptly.

“Where are the other passengers?”

“No one else is on the train. It's just you.”

“The other carriages must be empty then?”

“You are in the only carriage on this train.”

“How can that be possible?”

“It just is.”

Viet was lost in thought for a moment. Maybe this was all just a dream, but he had just woken up, so that couldn't be it. He tried to move his toes, but even his shoes were too tight, and he couldn't wiggle them. He couldn't even lean forward to take them off. He resolved to remain seated and upright.

“Where am I headed?” he asked the woman on the speaker.

“I don't know,” the woman replied.

“But you or someone else is controlling this train, while I'm just a passenger.”

“No. This train belongs to you.”

“How could that be possible? I'm just an ordinary worker; I can't afford a train!”

“I don't know.”

“I'll ask the train driver.”

“This train has no driver, only you.”

“How can it run without a driver?”

“You are controlling it.”

“Me?” Viet asked, incredulously.

“Yes,” the woman confirmed. “The train moves even when you're asleep, quietly so as not to disturb your rest.”

“But why did the train horn wake me up?”

“You couldn't sleep forever.”

“Then where is the train going?”

“I have no idea,” the woman replied. “This is your train, and you're the conductor. You must have had a destination in mind when you boarded it.”

“Fair enough. But now I can't remember where I'm headed,” Viet said, furrowing his brows. “Maybe I overslept and forgot.”

Viet turned to the window to gaze outside. The train had passed through the rocky terrains without him noticing. At that moment what he saw was a grove of trees, and he tried to make out what type of trees they were. It was then that he realised it was a stretch of coconut palms that extended far into the distance along the train tracks, seeming endless like the fields and rocky terrain.

“Why did you speak up?” Viet asked. “I mean, why did you even bother to say anything?”

“It's my duty to answer your questions about the train,” the voice replied.

“What does it matter what you answered? Didn't you say that I know everything already?”

“Yet you are still curious,” the voice stated. “At least I helped you confirm your situation.”

“You could have stayed silent.”

“Silence can be unsettling. It's better to have a conversation than sit in awkward silence.”

Viet suddenly looked out the window at the scene outside. “I've never felt so strange,” he said. Large and round coconuts were dropping from the coconut palms. The coconuts were lined up endlessly along the train tracks, rolling around and close to the train car. It was a sweet fruit that he enjoyed, but the train was moving so fast, and stopping abruptly just for the sake of this fruit would be dangerous.

“How long have I been on the train?” Viet suddenly asked.

A few seconds later, he heard the reply from the female voice. “Perhaps a long time, I'm not sure. Or maybe you just got on the train and fell asleep, only to wake up now. Please forgive me; I'm just a voice talking to you through this speaker. There is no tool here to inform me when you boarded the train.” And the speaker fell silent.

The train moved faster now, as Viet was too curious about the destination. He thought it could be a dream, where the journey was exciting, and the destination was always a mystery. He hoped he need not worry, as it was just a dream. He imagined waking up in his room bathed in the morning sun and alarm bells, going out, walking up the alley and telling this story to the gossiping ladies. Or was all of this the truth? But the woman on the speaker had made it clear that he was the one who set the destination and controlled the train. But what if the woman was lying? Was a train driver in the cab taking him to a secret place? But whether she lied or not, it didn't matter to him. He still couldn't stand up, walk forward, and open the carriage door, even though it was only three steps away. He listened carefully, but there was no voice behind the door. He couldn't verify anything except that he was still alive and breathing. He could only ask the woman on the speaker, but surprisingly, she insisted that it was he who knew all the information, not her.
In this dark carriage, there was a woman who heard him and replied to him, but he couldn't grasp any useful information from her. He even had no topic to talk about. He chose to be silent and ponder.

“I don't know much about you, so I can't talk to you,” the speaker suddenly spoke.

“I just want to talk to my mother. I haven't seen her in a long time since I moved away from my hometown to work in the city. I'm asking myself when the last time we talked was. I haven't called her for a long time. I thought I still had an older sister to care for her. I want to call her now, telling her I'm on a train that is supposed to be mine without knowing where it's headed. And she would keep asking me where I am, and I would keep stating I don't know. And we would end up in mere silence. And her silent tears. Now I wonder what I could do. Even what I could think of. My mind. An empty carriage. I must sleep. I think I must sleep. When the train whistle wakes me up again, perhaps I'll see the destination.”
---
The shrill whistle of the train pierced the air, startling Viet from his motionless seat. He remained alone in the darkened carriage. Outside the window, a stark expanse of ebony terrain and an ivory sky were divided by a horizon, but it was more like the edge of the world. The train chugged along fast enough for Viet to glimpse a chasm, yawning like an open maw, at the end of the terrain. “Must be a bottomless pit,” Viet thought, feeling uneasy.

“How can the train cross that?”

“Excuse me, can I stop the train?” he asked.

“The train cannot stop,” the voice answered icily.

“Why not? I'm the conductor.”

“You can control it to run, but you can't make it stop,” the voice said softly.

“So, I have to make a U-turn. There's a deep chasm ahead!”

“The rail line only goes forward. How can you turn back?” The crackling sound from the speaker due to the weak signal made the voice harder to be heard.

“But I didn't want to rush into the chasm,” Viet opposed. He tried to stand up but couldn't move his body.

“The train follows your thoughts, even when you are asleep, right?” the voice asked, then interrupted by static.

“But I didn't mean to board the train, let alone to come and end up here.”
Viet looked at his wristwatch, where the two small hands had coincided. “So, only a minute has passed since then. Or is it more than an hour?” he was bewildered.

The chasm loomed closer outside, and the train was hurtling towards it. When he realised that, the window beside him was engulfed in an inky blackness. The train raced forward into the unknown, and everything went silent.

Cover photo by Nguyên Vũ.