The Train

Prologue - Wheels and a Whistle

A whistle. There. There it is again.

Are those... wheels? On a train track?

The first time those thoughts entered my mind when I was five-years-old. It was around seven o'clock at night, and my parents had just put me to bed. But, then, I heard the sounds of a train moving past. I was confused. There were no train tracks near my house, or even in my little town. How could I hear a train from so far away?

I immediately got out of bed and ran downstairs to tell my parents. They thought I was delusional, that I was imagining it. The thing was, I wasn't imagining it. I did hear a whistle; I did hear those wheels on the track. And, after that fateful night, I heard those noises every day for the rest of my life.

I wouldn't always hear them at night. Sometimes, it would be in the middle of the day, or early in the morning. I would hear it in school, or it would wake me up.

However, no matter how many times I heard the train, I never saw it. I never could find where the sounds were coming from. In the past, I attempted to chase after the noises, but I never saw anything. No train, no tracks. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

It aggravated me at first. I would always hear it, but I could never see it. I wanted to know what it looked like, what kind of train it was. I wanted to know what was on it, and who the passengers were. I wanted to know everything, but I couldn't find the darn train. It was frustrating.

There was something a little bit more frustrating, though. I've asked so many people, and apparently, I'm the only one who can hear the train. No one else can. No one else hears wheels on tracks in the dead of night. No one has a train whistle waking them up in the morning. Only me, myself, and I have the pleasure of those things.

Everyone thinks I'm insane. You should have seen their faces when I asked about the train sounds. It was priceless. I can appreciate how hilarious their faces were now that I'm not horrified that I was the only one who could hear the noises. I've come to terms with the fact now. Besides, the sounds are pretty much just white noise in background now. And hey, maybe I am crazy. Maybe I am just delusional and imagining things. I can accept that, too. It's not really interrupting my daily life, so I'm okay with it. Everyone's a bit crazy in their own way anyway.

There's whistle, and there it is again. Oh, I hear the tracks, too.

But, say I'm not completely insane. Where do the sounds come from, then? Even though I just said I'm used to the train sounds, every time I hear them, I always wonder where they're coming from. I mean, how could I not? There's no train or tracks to prove the sounds were really there. It's not logical. It doesn't make sense. The sounds have to come from somewhere. So, where?

Maybe I'll never know the answer. It might just be a mystery my whole life. Maybe it will be something I forget about eventually. But, until eventually arrives, I guess I will just sit and wonder about the train when I lay in my bed at night or when I should be paying attention in class.

Because really, what more interesting: a phantom train or geometry?