I Killed the Conductor (and let’s just forget about the passengers)

The thickening blanket of haze, cushions the lungs of the crowd.

Every word murmured gets stuck up in the grey

With everything displayed for all to read, it doesn’t matter what they heard you say

The tension is building, but the smoke sits like a veil, and the image is masked

Just sit back and inhale. There are enough toxins in this air for us all to get off.

I’m riding this one through to the end. I am the final passenger on this all night train.

The view out the window is going by too fast, and so are these drinks.

I stumble back to the bar, and ask the tender to pour me two more

Music is being played over the speakers in each booth

Sinatra wasn’t acknowledged half as much as he should have been

The notes all fade together in my head. Spinning my mind into an intense interlude.

My lady in red is dancing to unheard beats contained within the friction of sheets.

Empty bottles cover each table top, and tainted faces smile fakely across to each other

No one wants to end the journey alone, and this whole train is a champagne room

The scents of alcohol and too much perfume are used to hide the bloodlust

There is too much drama on this train for us all to make it out alive

I search the room for a friendly face, but every pair of eyes, have already been paired with someone else. With no one to talk to, and the bar still open, this seat has become my new best friend. It is the only thing that is delaying me from hitting the ground.

My lips have a thousand secrets to whisper into your ears, and they could make you melt.

But instead, they sip back drink after drink. My intentions wander, and so do the hands of everyone else on this fucking train. Every pair of hands is gripping at the body of the person next to them, except mine. My grip is focused completely on this glass.

Love songs will the airwaves as the night rolls on. My gut wrenches and my intentions start to flail. The people around me are all contently immersed in conversations and are on fire with glowing senses of immortality.

It then occurred to me that I must get out of here.

I must leave this chair, and I must find someone to stop this train.

The trust in my legs has allowed them to function. Stumbling with more than my fair share of falls, my head had been bounced off of several walls.

A sense of confusion and frustration overwhelmed me now.

It seemed as though I could never make it to the conductor. I needed him to stop.

I want off this fucking train, at all costs, I’m getting off.

Anger. Pressing onward is a must. The conductor is here, I can smell him.

I smell his filthy blood seeping through his veins.

The lovely conductor who set up and runs this fucking hell train.

There was no compassion here for me. The advertisements lied. I am not satisfied with the quality of this campaign. He is doing this to me. The train must be stopped.

He must be stopped. The conductor must be stopped.

Oh how fast I flew to that door. I was now at the destination, where I wanted to be.

I knew what was on the other side, and what had to be done.

I opened that door, oh so silently, as to not make a sound.

There he was, but he could not see me.

My eyes lay on the back of his head as I crept.

I crept up ever so softly, sneakily. He didn’t realize that I was there until too late.

The conductor’s neck snapped like a stick between my twisting hands.

I had now stopped the conductor. My deed had been done.

But that wasn’t enough. What about everyone else?

Those sick maggots were in on this game.

They made me do this, they drove me insane.

You were sick with love and now I’m sick with toxicity and enraged with blood.

I want them all to go down. They will never make it home.

I am going to be the last man standing.

I am going to save everyone on this train. Insanity. They all need to be saved from this train. It has captured us all in a sense. But I have just abstained from it. I can beat the train. I will save everyone. While you sleep, you will all be brought to a safer place. The route has been altered, and the destination set in.

I am the only going making it home tonight. But in order to make it home, I must indeed get home. And in order to get home, I must make it away from this train and save the passengers. I must get to the back. I must get detached. This train is going down tonight, and I am the only one going home. Run fast I must, for there is little time left. The separation is nearing, and I must get detached from this fucking train.

I foam from the mouth, rabid I speed through cart vessel to cart vessel. I flew through the carts which once contained the passengers allured with love, now empty.

The end of the chain is where I was, and also where I want to be

So I found myself in the caboose, the end of the train.

Things were different here; I was alone again, but this time truly alone.

I knew what I had to do; I unhinged the bolts and pushed off the latch.

I pulled on the rear emergency break with enough time, so I could see that whole fucking train go down. I wanted to watch it all occur. I wanted to hear if anyone screamed.

I just sat and watched as it went off the tracks, flipped over and sat on its back.

It burst into flames and then there was a slight explosion.

White loud noise came from all around and collected in the train to make that sound.

I grinned and at that moment I knew that I had beaten the train.

The conductor was dead, same with every passenger, but me.

I was the hero of this train wreck, and I had saved the day.

Some would call this wrong, or say “what a catastrophe”

But I would be the victor, for I had beaten the train.

The train was the rival so I did my duty to protect the world.

The conductor is dead.

…And let’s just forget about the passengers.

By Brynn Amber Smith