Trafika Europe 11 - Swiss Delights

Short Fiction

On the very last track at the station stood a train with the lights on in all but one of its compartments. Although it was early summer, it was cold out. The station, much like the surrounding area, had a sinister air about it. There wasn’t a soul in sight. Then again, it was probably two in the morning and we were in the countryside, along the Baltic coast, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. We boarded the train and settled into the dark compartment, hoping we wouldn’t wake up in an even less welcoming place the next morning. And so we rode on, enveloped in a light sleep punctuated by dreams, when we suddenly heard footsteps at the other end of the aisle: a slow, menacing crescendo of footsteps that culminated in the sound of a door sliding open and the arrival of a relatively small man. He looked about the size of a child, but his austere, communist- style uniform enlarged his impact. Giving us nary a glance, he folded down one of the side seats, climbed onto it, grabbed the overhead luggage rack, and proceeded to change a lightbulb. Giving the door a kick, he then left the same way he’d come, without saying a word, while we returned to the warm embrace of sleep. We woke up well after daybreak. The train had already rumbled to a stop, people were boarding and taking their seats.

313