“I never did like trains. Too fiddly, all those doors and ticket barriers, dear me” he said as he picked his way out of the wreckage.
Some people are born with a seemingly indefinite patience, others not so much. Neil belonged to the latter. A balding man in his early forties, he’d never been a patient person, not even as a child and some things just get worse with age.
He spied a chair standing amongst the destruction somewhere to his left, and hobbled across. As he stepped over what appeared to be part of the train’s engine, he noticed a small hand poking out from beneath an over-turned carriage.
“Children on trains are the worst,” he thought before depositing himself in the battered chair. “They’re always crying about something. Needing the toilet or losing a toy or wanting some sugary rubbish. Then the soft mothers give in.”
Like a king admiring his empire from the throne, Neil surveyed the wreckage. It sprawled before him, a desolate place, a trauma on the surface of the earth.
“Bliss,” thought Neil.
The track ran parallel to the chair and remained in one, whole, unbroken line, as far as he could see. Along the track were the remnants of the train, and its load. As if marked on a timeline, each piece giving some indication as to what had occurred.
Just behind Neil’s chair lay a felled tree, split and shattered near its base by a coal cart that had been tossed from the rails and cascaded down a bank, once smooth, uninterrupted greenery; now cracked, with scars like deep crevices. This must have been one of the first casualties.
The first ‘human’ casualty lay in front of Neil, his plastic eyes stared at him, empty. Legs, snapped, stood on by a vindictive giant. Beside him, the body of the train, crushed from the impact. Glass expelled from the windows in disgust, wheels collapsed yards away as they tried to flee and the inner mechanics laid bare for all to see. The train was naked.
Neil became aware of a ticking noise, a grinding noise, disturbing his peace. With a sigh he heaved himself out of his chair and walked across to another carriage of the train. Looking in he could see scores of people littered on what was once the roof. The rows of seats now looked like precariously placed stalactites, though not a danger to the rigid bodies beneath them. Not now.
“I always thought trains should have seat belts, although how much use would they be really?” he thought as he looked around again.
A wheel was still turning, the source of the disturbance. Neil wandered around to the back of the carriage, and put his hand on the cold metal, slowing then stopping the wheel. All became silent.
“That’s better” he sighed before heading down the track. In a few steps he came across what appeared to be half of an old railway bridge. Vague memories came back to him. He was speeding over the bridge looking down into a patchwork valley of trees and painted lakes. He saw the cows stood rigidly, preparing for the impact perhaps. “Where are they now?” he wondered as he wandered.
Neil was abruptly woken from his musing by a sharp pain in his right foot. Instinctively he took a step backwards onto some other malicious object. Cursing in pain he looked down at his shoeless feet and saw that he had trodden on several objects. A door, a tree, a shard of glass, a signalling light, a piece of what looked like the driver’s cabin and more glass.
“Bloody trains, why not football?” He huffed.
From behind came a small, timid voice, “Daddy?”
Neil spun around to see a young face with blonde hair clutching a door in terror. Just beyond stood a woman, also with blonde hair and an identical look of terror.
“Neil,” she trembled, “Neil, please...” she began but was cut short by his seething eyes. Instead she lowered her own teary eyes to the ground and the debris that lay there.
“Daddy... I’m sorry... I didn’t mean to make you mad.” Said Lucas between sobs “I just... wanted to play... daddy.”
His mother put a protective arm around the boy and said in little more than a whisper, “Are you happy? Are you happy Neil?”
“Oh very,” he spat, “There’s no noise in case you haven’t noticed. I won’t have to put it all back together ever again, no more arsing around with bloody screwdrivers or Allan-keys.” His voice was escalating, “and perhaps now he’ll go and play football like a real boy!” He shouted.
“What is wrong with you?!” screamed Lucy. “Do you think of no-one but yourself?”
“Myself? All I’ve been doing for the past...”
The peace was shattered. The room was filled with hostility and the anguished sobs of a child caught in the middle of a scene it should never witness. Left unnoticed in the war zone Lucas sought solace in the wreckage.
He staggered through the ruins, pausing every second or so recalling the horrifying event. His soft fingers deftly stroked a deep crack running through a moulded mountain, he remembered his father’s foot crashing down upon it, he remembered the sound of the plastic shattering, like a flash of lightening from the gods.
His eyes caught those of a miniature boy missing his right hand. Originally he’d been attached to his father by the hand, but now he lay inches away from him, his arm still raised towards him, searching for him. Lucas picked up the figure and his father and stared into their eyes, he inspected the wrist, saw how the plastic had snapped but he could not fix it.
He looked back at his own father, red faced, arms raised, irrational anger leaking from every pore in his shaking body. Between them much more than a few inches, more than a ruined train set. What lay between them was a cracked and shattered relationship that no amount of glue could fix.
