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The Trip The moon shimmered off the railroad ties as Tom Hawkins came out of the forest, huffing and puffing, running beside the moving boxcar. His white hair and round, wirerim glasses reflected into the still night. When the train slowed for a sharp curve, he managed to pull himself up, belly first onto the boxcar’s floor. Straining and squirming, he rolled into the car. Catching a breath, he sat up, chest rose and fell. “I still have it. Not getting that much older,” he spoke into the dark car. Tom existed on the fringes of society once a philosophy professor, now a traveller of the rails. Slowly raising his head, he saw a shadowy group of three dark ghost like figures all of a different height. They looked like shadows held within a shadow, as they stood in a diamond formation, haunting and yet some how fearful, dark silhouettes of some past being. Tom felt their fear mingle with his, as a frightening smell of death wafted through the boxcar, as if the boxcar had been caring dead carcasses and their sent remain in these ghost like creatures. “What have I got myself into” he thought, as his body was overtaken with fright and grief. His eyes grew big and round and he began to hunch over, feeling small and alone. A dark presence in a shadow hovered over him, lingering, haunting the air above . “They’re not real,” said a young girl, her eyes peeking out from under the armpit of the tallest of the three ghosts. She was hidden from his view only her eyes shown in the glittering light of the moon, the rest of her captured in the shadows. Tom felt he knew those eyes, a reminder of every young life that he had ever seen. Then he thought, I can not stay here, I should roll back out of the boxcar, but the train had picked up speed. The clang, clang of the wheels rang ever faster in his ears. The train rolled down the dark and lonely tracks, stretching and coiling, trying to come to its end. Tom tried to will his body to move. Move your arms, move your legs, he thought, please move. It was as if he’d entered a dream and could not wake up, could not will his body to move, could not speak. The girls eyes had disappeared as the three shadowy figures came closer and looked down and into his eyes . Why were they looking at him, did they see something in him The girl’s words hung in the back of his mind like a hopeful wish. They’re not real he thought. Look at what you fear, I’m not what you fear he thought to himself. Do not look at me Please look away I’m not here, I’m not here Suddenly, he passed out. When he awoke, it was dark, and the door of the boxcar had been pulled shut. He felt the pull of the train jolt his body. Feeling a chill, he realized with a shock that he was naked. His hands moved over his loose, wrinkled skin. Panic gripped him again. What had happened to him Where was he going He thought to himself. I can no longer trust my senses. He rubbed his hands over his arms. Then he remembers being poked, then being turned over to be prodded again. The darkness hurt his eyes. Light from the moon filtered through gaps in the wooden walls of the train car. He found his way to the doors and slid them open. Swaying, he stood at the entrance. The moon lit his face, slowly spreading down his naked white body. The old man in Tom smacked his teeth together. He still had his dentures. ”Humans, he thought. What a race we are. We do everything to try to make us live longer to be more , but we are just that, an animal. We all die. Ghost, memories, they all haunt us, we are not so important, non of us. ” He looked down at his hands in the moonlight, wrinkled, old and dirty. The girl’s words were true, what I am seeing is not real, he thought. Shaking his head, he no longer felt fear. “I am a river.” He said out loud,” Blood flows through me like time flows through the wind.” He looked down at his dick and his loosely hanging balls. Old man balls. “This will be my last trip,” he spoke out loud. “They’ll have me in a nuthouse yet.” Then, from inside the dark something threw his dirty clothes in a pile in front of him. “Who’s there,” Tom asked. The response was silence. “Why did you undress me” He spoke louder. “I’m not afraid anymore. Still silence. “What could you possibly want from an old man, a naked old man” “They’re not real, they’re not real,” said the young girl again, this time her voice echoed from the dark walls of the boxcar. “And neither are you” “Then who am I I’m real too, I’m real to me” Tom said, looking into the dark. “Not to us . . . not to our world. We do not want to see you, old man,” said one of three shadowy ghost as they came forward from the back of the boxcar. “Who are you” Tom asked. “And why did you take my clothes and throw them back at me You’re the ones who smelled of death before. Why do you want to frighten me Are you the seers of fear, ghosts from another time” The train rattled down the track, flashing through the landscape. The moon stood suspended, watching the old man shine like he was in a glossy black and white movie picture show. He stood, facing the three ghosts. The child’s voice lingered in the back of the old man’s mind, prowling the dark like a lion in the moonlight, afraid and lonely, reaching into the Tom’s past memories. Do you remember me, do you see me” the voice asked coming more alive in his head. Tom feared that voice of the child, which spoke no words out loud, but remained in the shadows of his mind. He feared the innocence in the voice’s dark blue eyes and its oncehuman glare. The voice made Tom think of all the unfeathered reasons he gave up his life as a professor, to fallow the life of a hobo, a drifter, a man who found meaning in living life only half aware of his existence, a man dulling his senses, a man who cried himself to sleep at night and did not know why. A man who would rather die than face the truth. A man who lost a little of his mind. To the professor in Tom, the once brilliant man, the three spirits were like shadowy memories who could roam through time, asking unanswerable questions of little matter, killers of night dreams, questioners of the existence of being. Figures in a spotlight, caught for a brief moment between one place and another, but always in formation. They were like bothersome midwives, always waiting for an unassisted birth, asking nature to do all the work. Sleepwalkers in daylight. And now Tom thought that they have found a place to rest and be swept away opening the detours of time as they travel on this train car to which Tom by chance, had been admitted. Tom felt his fear had let them free to be exposed to their own fear and the gifts of their own restraint. The ghost had found in Tom a seer, that could by no explanation see them . A man a little mad. “Put your clothes on, old man. We want nothing of you. Just leave,” said the tallest of the three. The other two were a step behind, to his left and right. They looked on, cold and silent. “But what did you do to me” Tom asked. The train was slowly coming to a stop. “Remember, you came to us. You came to our little travelling home, “said the largest of the shadowy ghost. “We did not invite you,” said the smallest of the spirits. His voice hung in the air like an uninvited guest. Tom sat down, with shaking hands wiped the dirt from his hairy butt, and began to put on his clothes. “Why did you undress me” he demanded again. “And where are my shoes A man needs shoes to walk, in this world.” Then Tom hesitated, looking around, for he could feel the voice of the child as if it had a physical presents moving around silently, in its youthful manner, free and easy as the shadow of the child moved along the walls . Tom felt desire to bring the child back to life, to feed the lines of its existence. He wanted to make the child mortal, to give it the gift of life. Tom felt it roaming the dark interior of the car. The response from the ghost was cold and silent. Reflectively, the tallest of the three spirits said, “We fear what you are, old. We fear that Father Time may touch us, too. We needed to see you in your innocence, with only your pure self, your hair, legs and eyes, innocent and free like a baby. The water in your veins, the pulse of your heart. Growing to live. But we find that you are living to die.” Tom stopped thinking about the girl for a minute and said, “But all things grow old, all things die” . “No” shouted the three apparitions voices in unison. “No, we are born to live” “And the girl . . . what about the girl” Tom asked. “She is but an reflection of a past life that has yet to be, she has joined us for a brief moment to meet thee. ” said the second tallest apparition. “She is the bud of innocence, the flower of hope, who means less to us than thee, a counterweight in favor of your reality. For we three, are the dark hopes , that which goes on and never changes. A life that never dies but lingers in its shadows. “Yes, I know you’re ghosts, you’re already dead, you’re floating apparitions from another time, more afraid of me than I am of you. It’s the girl’s voice that has put a spell on me. I feel words that are not spoken. She lingers inside me, asking me if I am real.” “She is a reflection of what could have been. Leave, old man, while you have a breath of air to take with you.” The three apparitions stood in formation, like a spear, pointed at the end. The head of the spear spoke. “Insanity walks with us, old man. We can change your world like a misplaced object.” Tom’s shoes appeared in the moonlight, only to vanish from his sight. Tom scanned around the dark interior of the boxcar. He could no longer feel the presence of the girl’s voice. Slowly, he lowered himself out of the halted car. He felt the bite of gravel on his bare feet. Looking back into the car, he felt relief, free from a bad dream. He reached inside his coat pocket, looking for the Mad Dog bottle of wine, and took it out. It was empty. He thought, did he drink all the wine Was he hallucinating the whole event with the ghost, and the child Tom walked uncomfortably away from the train on bare feet. He was afraid to go back and look for his shoes. The voice of the young girl’s words repeated in his head,” they’re not real and either are you” The End