I open my eyes to find myself lying on a wooden bench in what appears to be an old train station.
The bench is painted green, and the paint is old, with bits and pieces of it flaking off in dried patches.
There are pictures on the walls, and an old telephone that's mounted on an extension of the wall, protruding out into the room like a rough, rectangular finger.
Finishing off this fairly blank slate is an old color TV set with a single lamp with a fancy shade on top of it. This is providing a decent amount of light, although the suggestion of sunlight coming in through unseen windows is evident.
Knowing that this, somehow, is my only last memory of existence, I realize that I have never been before this moment. So what gives?
It comes to me then. I am a simulacrum. A superimposed ego. A projection of an author's psyche, perhaps. Fine with me. Any reason to exist is as good as any other, as I see it, and the place has character; I especially love the old phone!
Ah, communication! Let's see if the phone is connected.
So I walk over to it, and lift the old receiver. Yes! There's a tone!
I look for a crank on the side, but find none. Heh! At least this old-fashioned phone is a little bit later in age than the originals with the old hand cranks. So I dial Zero.
A few clicks, then "Operator, how may I help you?"
I muse at the concept. "Can you tell me what circuit this phone is connected to? What city?"
The Operator pauses. "I had to look at my computer a second time, sir." She said. "It's an old line that just came back in service, today."
I heard random key clicks for a few seconds, then the Operator came back on.
"Sir, I need to verify your identification. May I have your name, please?"
"Boris Zeldkey," I seemed to know to say.
"And Mr. Zeldkey, your address?
"Waverton Train Station, Line 3, Missouri Spur."
The Operator clicked keys a few more times, then responded.
"Yes, that concurs with what I have, although the address is an old railroad type that hasn't been in service for years. I know this as my grandfather was an engineer for Union Pacific back in the day."
I stared at the receiver. This Operator's personal tone was nothing short of miraculous.
"Well, um, yes, ma'am." Dumbfounded, I came up short of words.
"You should be receiving your mail at the station, at a box outside, just at the edge of the platform." The Operator indicated to me that this was showing on a pop-up note on her computer display.
"It just seems to pop up every time I make a query to the system, sir."
I was intrigued, but not surprised. "That's all right, ma'am, stranger things are happening to me on my end of the phone, than yours. I wouldn't worry about it."
I had a thought. "May I request your name, please? I'm Boris. Boris Zeldkey. I'm kind of a professional traveler and travelogue rolled into one. I author a blog."
The Operator's vocal patterns indicated she was a bit reticent, but then confidence in her anonymity seemed to win out.
"I'm Penelope Boxxe. Like 'boxcar' but with two x's and an 'e' on the end."
"Well, it's nice to meet and talk with you, Penelope. I appreciate your help, and I guess I'd better get off the phone and go check my mail."
We exchanged a few additional pleasantries, then I hung up the phone.
I took another look around the 'station,' such as it was, and found a door leading to the outside, right next to a ticket booth that looked as if it hadn't sold a single ticket in forty years; dust lay thick on the window glass of the booth. I made a mental note to clean up the glass--as well as the rest of the place.
Walking over to the door, I noticed it was painted the same dark green as the bench, but seemed to have weathered a bit better than the bench had. I looked at the door. "Probably due to people not sitting on you," I spoke to the door, out loud, as if it were sentient.
The door seemed to squeak a bit, just then, causing me to do a double-take!
"Hmmmm?" I mused. I really must be a bit more circumspect about my surroundings. A door that responds? I didn't know what to make of it just yet.
Walking up to the door, I looked through the glass--which was fairly devoid of grime--and looked out upon a scene of Americana.
Grabbing the heavy, brass knob, I turned it, opening the door, which moved effortlessly on whatever lubricant was left on its ancient hinges. It didn't squeak, anyway, which seemed odd, given the squeak I had heard, earlier.
The station platform was long, wide, and thick with green paint and clear varnish, a strange conglomerate of what I took for an upper-crust train station, like one might see in a wealthy, New England backwater.
I looked off to the left. An old telegraph window and the end of the platform, which seemed to drop away, down a hill. Looking the other way, I saw more platform, a few chairs, and permanent benches that were screwed to the wooden floor with large screws set in steel bases holding the wooden bench seats which were also painted that matching dark green.
Then, looking past the benches--which took up the middle of the platform area--I saw a lone, silver, metallic box, mounted to a large post which made up one corner of the platform near the tracks.
Tracks! I almost forgot what kind of a place this was. There were, indeed, tracks, and they went off into the distance until disappearing over a rise, indicating a hill. I looked toward the direction of the telegraph office window, then moved my eyes to the tracks, noting their course in the other direction.
Call it haze. Call it mist. Call it nothing. But then something happened and what seemed to be just a cloudy fogbank cleared and revealed something unexpected; where fog had been, now a track-siding revealed itself, where a train might place cars, waiting for another train to pass, and the like.
The main track, however, went downhill, and a small town revealed itself in the distance, toward the bottom of the slope! I made a mental note to walk down there--there must be a path!--and reconnoiter a bit, later on.
Feeling an urge, I walked to the other end of the platform, and, reaching into my pocket as if from a time of long habit, produced a key, and used it to unlock and open the silver box.
There was one letter, inside. I grabbed it out of the box, then shut the door, and locked it again.
Seeing the letter was addressed to a one "B. Zeldkey," I took the liberty of opening the envelope, which revealed a five-page missive, written on linen, heavy-stock paper with either a fountain pen or a calligraphic writing instrument of some type. Dare I say a quill pen?
I read the first few lines, then decided to go back inside and sit down for a while, as the contents were going to take a bit of faith to accept.
©Copyright 2014 Stephen Andrew Brown. All Rights Reserved.
