A Tale of Two Trains

     Over a precipitous ravine ran two train tracks. One, majestically built up by strong and intricate wooden framework, extended straight across the ravine (called Mavet), sure and sturdy. This was train line A. The other, train line B, abruptly ended at the opening of Mavet Ravine, leading to an inevitably cataclysmic fall off the cliff. This second train track was intended to be a facsimile of the parallel train track. The declared intent was for one track to intersect with the other, but it required approval from line A's owner. Each owner was the designer of his track. The owner of line B had no jurisdiction beyond the Mavet ravine. He solicited the permission necessary to join tracks but was denied - and with good reason. He had murdered the only two sons of the owner of line A.

    In the county of Samay, there lay a large, well-populated, rural hunting town named Ard. The disaster of centuries was on the brink of occurrence for the entire county because, as newspapers everywhere were warning, geological data indicated an imminent and inevitable earthquake of great magnitude; and every indicator led seismologists to believe it would very likely have its epicenter directly under the neighboring volcano that towered over the town and had not erupted for many years. The lava from the predicted eruption was projected to cover all of Ard, and the burning ash was expected to consume and pollute the entire Samay county. Every source of news dripped with stories of the impending doom, and the townspeople were, for the most part, in a frenzy, preparing to move. There were a number of deniers who felt the entire matter was a governmental conspiracy to excite unrest and create havoc. These refused to make any preparations. But the majority sought to flee the town. However, in this rural area separated from the rest of the land by the largest gorge on the continent, Mavet, there were no vehicles that could lead out of the county - except two. Two trains.

    The terrain of Samay was a very long peninsula, the point of which was the volcano of interest, Mt. Panduan. Directly abutting Mt. Panduan on the inland side was Ard. Moving inland from Ard, the county of Samay stretched for many miles all the way to Mavet Ravine. The two train tracks with their many stations were an impressive architectural feature of the landscape as they covered the entirety of the county, which was the second largest on the continent. On the far side of Mavet Ravine, there was only one more train station: the last stop of line A. That was the beginning of the famously paradisiacal county (and the largest on the continent): Hortus.

    The time of the anticipated volcanic eruption was near. The news called for all remaining citizens who were going to leave to go to the Ard train station as the last trains were leaving, not to return. Some stayed behind, unbelieving. Some left.

    An elderly woman stepped onto the train platform that straddled lines A and B. It was a simple station with only two signs: one over the entrance of line A which read, "No weapons," and one over the entrance of line B that read, "No limitations." The woman was headed toward the area of the entrances when a young man called out, "Excuse me, ma'am!" As she turned, she saw a dashing gentleman who couldn't have been more than twenty years old eagerly approaching her. "I had to leave everything behind so quickly, I didn't have time to look into which train is cheaper. Would you happen to know?" he inquired. "Both are free," replied the woman. The man looked puzzled, "How is that possible? And which one should I get on, then?" Without hesitating, the woman grabbed his hand and spryly led him toward the entrance to line A as she answered, "This one."

    The man, following along, glanced at the sign hanging over line B before seeing the one over line A. He stopped and protested, "Wait, I have two guns with me." The woman stopped and replied matter-of-factly, "Throw them away. You won't need them where we're going. Hortus has a crime rate of zero percent, you know." "But I'm attached to them," the man insisted, "They belonged to my father and his father. Besides, line B has no limitations. Isn't that clearly the better option?" The woman replied, "There are profound reasons for which line B ought not even to be an option. I can explain it to you, but the train is leaving, and there's not another one after this. It's your last chance to get out of town."

    The man was torn. He truly was attached to the pair of pistols he had inherited from his family. But there was a wisdom and certainty in the woman's voice that he trusted. And since the whole town of Ard was about to be destroyed, he succumbed to his own reasoning that his weapons' fate should properly share that of his hometown; he threw his firearms in the garbage bin and walked with the woman onto line A. No sooner were the guns disposed of than the pilfering arms of a passenger of line B fished them out and boarded his train.

    As the young man and old woman settled into their train seats opposite each other, the woman asked him, "Have you truly never known anything about the construction of these railroads?" The man answered, "No. And are they two railroads? Isn't it two lines of one company?" "No," the woman gravely replied, "They are very different.

    "The founder of the train you're on has a very sad story. I knew him from a young age and was well-acquainted with all the happenings of his life. He had a son once: his pride and joy. The boy was obsessed with trains, you see, and his father was inclined to encourage the boy to live out his dreams. The boy said he wanted to have his own railroad one day. But he never even lived to see adulthood." The young man sympathetically commented, "Oh no...Disease?" The woman shook her head, "Much worse. There came a man, one day, out from the woods to the father's property where the young child was playing with one of his model trains. This man was carrying a hunting rifle; he approached the boy from behind and shot him in the back of the head." The young man's jaw dropped in horror as he gasped slightly, "No! How could...why? What was the motive?" The woman mused seriously, "I think most of us like to believe there's some good in everyone, and we try to see it in them. But this man...he's made of something different. Twisted in the mind, twisted in his soul. You know how some people just like rock-climbing? And some people just like singing? This man - he just likes killing. Age means nothing to him. Love means nothing. Life...well, that's his game. We come from a hunting town, and his prey isn't fulfilling to him unless it can feel."

    The young man asked frantically, "Was he not apprehended? Charged? Locked up?" The woman replied, "When you have the power and influence he does, you can get all the people you need to cover up whatever you want." "All the people?" queried the man, "What kind of influence does this murderer have?" The woman candidly said, "My dear young friend, the murderer is the mayor of our town of Ard." Again, the young man found himself agape, "Our mayor?!" The woman explained, "When corruption is suffused through every level of government, evil deeds are easy to exonerate and cover. Sadly, that's only the first half of his story.

    "The bereaved father had another son. Being immeasurably heartbroken from the death of his first son and wanting to tend to all matters of life and death, he took out the most expensive life insurance policy he could possibly find on every member of his family; he paid heavily into it. He only had two dreams left: to build a railroad in honor of the desires of his deceased son and take his family away from the town of Ard. To leave Samay wasn't much of a possibility in those days, you know, what with us being cut off from the county of Hortus by Mavet Ravine. So, he hoped he could build a trestle long enough to span the gorge and so fulfill both his remaining dreams. The father invested all the money he could into laying railroad tracks all through his second son's life. Now, this second son lived to be older than you. But even though our nefarious former mayor had taken countless victims in the years after the father's first boy, he returned back to the father's territory. This time, emboldened by his long history of successful massacres, he shot the second son, not from behind, but in the face." The young gentleman's eyes welled as his gaze conveyed his rapt attention to the story. "The father, filled with indignation and hurt toward the mayor, determined then that if he had no sons to remove from such an unjust and corrupt town, he would take the town's entire population out from under the mayor's jurisdiction. He was granted a life insurance payout for the death of his second son that made him the richest man any of us have heard of. He used the wealth from that son's death to build the trestle over Mavet Ravine.

    "It was around the time the trestle was being finished that the first reports of an expected earthquake and volcanic eruption were sent out. The mayor, who had witnessed the building of the entire line A railroad and knowing that he would never be welcome on it, decided to make his own railroad. He built all the way to Mavet in a very short time, but his political sway ended in that region, and so did the funds sufficient to construct a trestle." "Wait," interrupted the man, "How could someone even on a mayor's salary make enough to build that much track in a short amount of time?" The woman replied, "He increased taxes to put the burden on his citizens. The people of Ard paid dearly the tolls required to build line B. Anyway, the twice-bereaved father had bought up the narrow strip of land surrounding his railroad track all the way to Hortus, and when the mayor petitioned a junction of the tracks, he was, of course, flatly rejected." "So where does line B lead?" asked the man. "To the bottom of the Mavet Ravine," answered the woman. "It was never finished. You see why I pled with you to relinquish your guns at the station?"

    The young man conjectured, "Hold on. Is that why that's the rule to get on this train? The owner of the line is scarred by the memory of what they did to his children?" "Oh goodness, yes," affirmed the woman, nonchalantly. "Can you imagine allowing on your own property the thing that ripped everything from you? He is now positively disgusted by all weapons. Can't abide the sight of them. That's why, as badly as he wants everyone to take advantage of his line, he couldn't stomach the allowance of the things that occasioned the death of his children. He understands why the town is so attached to them - it's how they made their living; but that's another reason he wanted to leave. He felt there was a better life for everyone to make for themselves if he could just get them to Hortus."

    Just then, the train slowed to a stop. A train attendant called, "Hatia Station!" The young man asked the attendant, "Sir, what's the last station stop before Mavet Ravine?" The attendant answered, "Hatia Station." "This is it?!" burst the young man, "So the next stop is Hortus?" "Might be," the attendant said curtly, "Every station is named Hatia station. So, your guess is as good as mine."

    While stretching his legs on the platform between the trains, the young man eyed line B with almost a disgust in his heart, thinking of the man who owned it. He wondered if people knew under what conditions it was built...or where it led! The terror of the thought of all those people plunging off the edge of a canyon suddenly hit him. He looked through the windows of the stopped line B train filled with masses of people laughing and cavorting carelessly; then he looked at line A and saw everyone sitting still and composed. He noticed that there were very few on his own train compared to the droves on line B. He thought he should at least warn some people on the platform now that there was a chance to switch trains. He hesitated but then spoke loudly, "Hey everyone!" Most of the people stopped and turned his direction. Most were visibly carrying weapons. "I've just learned something about line B, and I wanted to warn you that you're all headed off a cliff. It might be the next stop." The majority groaned in annoyance and went back to their former activity. Several contested, "That's the oldest wives’ tale of the bunch." "Another alarmist!" "Such a tired cliche." "Why would anyone decide to build a track to nowhere? Ridiculous notion!" Surprised but not yet deterred, the young man started to speak to passengers individually. Some threatened him with knives, and some waved him off. The civil ones' responses were substantially similar; it was always something to the effect of, "I believe what you're saying, but I really like the free-flowing atmosphere of this train. I want to have a good time. I'll switch trains at a station farther up." And when the man would try to plead, "But how do you know this isn't the last stop?" they would become frustrated with him and tell him to mind his business. A call was made to get back on the trains or be left to the whim of volcano ash. Several people left line A to join line B. The man, boarding his train, looked back one last time and saw a young teenage boy also looking back from line B with a tinge of sadness in his eyes. The doors closed, and the trains were off.

   

    "Hatia Station!" People filed out of both trains.

    Quite a few stops had gone by. Each one turned out not to be the final one. Each one saw the transfer of passengers from one train to the other. Each one was Hatia Station. The young man had been watching line B through the windows on each leg of the journey and scrutinizing them at every stop. He noted the joys of frivolity in everyone's demeanor. He looked at those on his own train, stop after stop, and couldn't help but notice the dullness everyone seemed surrendered to. Why couldn't they at least be having a good time? He noticed a preponderance of women on line A and wondered if there was something unmanly about his chosen mode of transportation. He felt the deficit of brotherly interaction, and there was plenty of that to be had on line B. He also thought of how people had responded to the words he repeated from the old lady. He had had plenty of time to think about how he had only heard one side. What if the old lady was crazy? He didn't think it was worth the chance of tumbling off a ravine if he was wrong. Still...others had said they would switch trains last minute, and so far they were doing well - certainly enjoying themselves more than him. He considered whether that might not be a bad tactic. As he paced the station platform, he saw the boy whom he had noticed at the first station stop. He was slowly walking as if transfixed by the train on line A. The boy pulled two pistols out of the inside of his jacket, letting them drop on the platform planks and continued walking slowly onto the line A train. The young man, watching, felt mixed feelings. His doubts were quite serious about whether the initial story he had been told about line A and its owner were true, but he couldn't help but feel a modicum of admiration and happiness for the teenager. He turned his eyes back to the guns on the ground. They were familiar. He picked them up. They were his. It was fate, he thought. This was his last opportunity to cherish what he always used to have before. He walked onto line B, resolved to change trains at the next stop.

    The old lady who had spoken with the young man watched him board the other train and whispered to herself, "If he only knew who the conductor was," under her breath just as the teenage boy found himself in the seat across from her. A few minutes into the ride, she commented, "You're awfully quiet." The boy replied sheepishly, "I'm taking in the atmosphere." "I didn't know there was much atmosphere to take in," joked the woman.

    Noticing, as the recently departed young man had, the high ratio of women to men, the boy had the wisdom to ask, "Why do more women ride this train than men?" The elderly woman sighed, "Women are more sensible about certain matters - gentle, trusting, and more apt to be peaceable. Men are more prideful in most things. It's hard for them to relinquish means of protection and vengeance, such as weapons. They want to take the reins of their life. So, it's hard for them to obey even one regulation that is not self-imposed." "Well," the boy replied, "I thought it was boring and stale over here when we all first got on our trains, and I liked the party feel the other train had. But everyone turned out overly possessive and protective of themselves on the other train. Suspicions and tempers got so high, I saw multiple people get shot between every stop because there's no trust. So, most everyone is scrambling to arm themselves to feel safe, but they're all on edge. So, it's like...you're free to enjoy yourself however you want, but anyone that noticed any of the danger always had a little worry in the back of their mind the whole time. So, I couldn't really enjoy it anyway." The woman half-smiled in approbation of his insight. "But when I looked over here," he continued, "I saw the atmosphere for what it was. Not boring or stale...peaceful. Relaxed. Unworried. I wanted that."

    Then, more earnestly, the boy asked, "Why are there so few people in general on this train?"

    The woman replied, "I'm sure the owner of this train has the same question."

    The scenery suddenly changed. There were no trees. There were spires of rock formations. There was no surrounding grass. There were underlying canyon walls. There was no second train.

Author's note:

This story was written in answer to the question, "Why would a loving God send people to hell?"

Answer: He does not. It was only the intended destination for the one who killed his two sons.

How unreasonable would it be for the passengers of line B to blame line A's owner for their destination?

Ard is the Arabic word for Earth.

Samay is the Hindi word for time.

Panduan is the Mandarin word for judgment.

Mavet is the Hebrew word for death.

Hortus is the Latin word for garden.

Hatia is the Swahili word for conviction.