Sad Train

The train cried into the station, so I walked over and asked what was wrong.

“Nobody on me is happy,” it said.

Not a single person? I couldn’t believe it, but so what?

“A train’s only as happy as its passengers,” it said and that filled me with a tragic kinda sadness.

I rubbed my hands over its worn steel side. Life had been good, so I said that I’d help. And just like that, I got on. It grumbled and sighed on to the next stop. I’ve always had a soft spot for trains.

It was like the train had said: a bunch of people with the blues. I swear it was a little chilly in there with sadness. Businessmen with briefcases, a zookeeper, some triplets, a bodybuilder, five ballerinas. It was a colorful cast for sure, but everyone was down. Frowns and gray eyes. That was, until I came upon these two girls, both of them crying with laughter, leaning on each other like they’d fall over if they didn’t. I asked them what was so funny.

         “A joke.”

         “What kinda joke?”

         “You wanna hear it?”

         I told them that I did so they told me – and I’ll be darned if I didn’t keel over too! It was one of the best jokes I’d ever heard.

         I said to the train:

         “Hey, look! Those two are happy.”

         But that wasn’t good enough, the train said. “Not deep down, they’re not.”

         And then it occurred to me, what about me? I was in a good mood for sure.

         “It’s the same,” said the train. “There’s blue inside you too.”

         That seemed unfair to me. Babies came out crying, didn’t they? What did it expect? But at the same time, I felt a kind of pang of fear at this train, seeing inside me with its light. But before I could say anything, it went on.

         “Can you imagine?” it asked. “I’ve gone around the world thrice with all my journeys. I can’t choose who goes on, that’s just what being a train’s all about. But I’ve never had a truly happy passenger. Nobody happy down to their bones. Just imagine that.”

         “Not even one?”

         I felt that same cold again, passing right through me. The train told me no.

         I looked over and saw that the two girls had stopped laughing. Now they looked just as happy as the rest of the car. I went over and asked them what was wrong. I reaffirmed that it had in fact been a really good joke.

         “It’s not funny anymore,” one said, not even looking up at me.

         Coming on the train, I’d thought that it would be easy enough – make somebody smile? That was simple for me. I’ve got a nice voice, and when I sing something by the Beatles, even acapella, it always leads to a couple grins. But even the Beatles couldn’t solve the human condition like that. Truth be told, the whole thing was ruining my day.

         Unsure of what to do, I walked to the next car and the next, but the faces were all the same. Frowns and gray eyes everywhere I looked.

         “It’s always like this?” I asked.

         “No, no,” the train said. “Today is especially bad. Most days, it’s a mixture.”

         I let out a “hm,” and travelled on. The times between cars were my tiny, noise-filled breaks.

         Finally, I came to a small, dark place: the conductor’s car. He didn’t acknowledge me which made me think he was kind of a jerk. There was the rumbling, gear filled, fiery engine. I sat down and warmed up. The train’s voice was different here, quieter, less resonant.

         “Why,” I finally asked, “did you want to be a train?”

         It laughed. “I’ve been asking myself the same thing. Do you like the Beatles?”

         I got real excited at that, started going on about how they were my favorite (I can get very high-energy about those guys) and the train started laughing again. It was sweet. We talked about our favorite albums – mine was Let it Be; its was Rubber Soul, but we both made sounds of approval at the others choice. The conductor made his own sounds too, humming in agreement when we mentioned one of his favorites and I could hear a smile on his face. “Great album, great album,” he mumbled. The train told me that it had been thinking about them because of that line at the end of Abbey Road:

         And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make. I could hear the tune of it in my head.

         “It’s not the exact same thing,” the train said, “but that’s been on my mind. I don’t really think of my job as an exchange like that, tit for tat, you know? But the thought came to me a couple years ago: not one truly happy passenger? After everything? That can’t be! But I remembered back and back as far as I could go and there weren’t any. Now, in the start I said that I’d just work hard, right? Get people where they’re going and keep looking. But these days it’s really started to get to me.”

         Honestly, I didn’t fully understand. Happiness and love? These weren’t the same things but what did I know about being a train. I hoped that the old conductor would chime in, but he was only a part of the room. There was the solid, rhythmic sound of machinery; something juddered and buzzed now and then.

         “It’s a hard place,” I said. “I’ve been worn down, if I’m being honest, and I do have blue in me. It’s true. Sometimes I wish I were more like a train, able to care so much about strangers like that all the time.” I thought and continued: “I don’t know if this’ll help you at all, but I knew a guy who was completely happy. I was a kid, so was he – this guy with a bowl-cut named Iggy. He was happy at his core now that I think about it. Not like he wouldn’t ever frown, but it always faded, always felt like an outer skin, does that make sense? There was an earthquake one time and Iggy was making jokes, not like an idiot or something. He just wanted to cheer everyone up. Nothing really ever touched his mood – heck, I’d probably believe it if you told me he came into the world laughing.”

         It was all true. Sometimes Iggy’s face, the bowl-cut, would pop into my head when some little thing got to me. All of us under the table, stationary raining around, and him looking into the future.

         The train said that it’d like to meet him, and it sounded like it might be smiling. But the truth is that it’s hard to tell what a train is feeling at the best of times. From that point until we said goodbye, and as I watched it leave the station, I wondered: had I helped? Should I have tried to understand it better? I thought all about love and happiness on my walk home.

***

Years later, I was back in the same area, and I saw sleek new trains whirring through. I asked a woman working there about it and was informed that most of the old trains had been replaced. It really bothered me. I thought about all those sad cars, the quiet conductor and most of all the train itself. Who knows if it was one of the lucky few survivors. I’d like to think that the whole thing was repurposed and moved to a different place, maybe a different country altogether, along with its conductor. In my mind, on it goes, looking for a truly happy soul.