Chapter 1: The Platform With No Name
It was a rainy night in Lahore in the month of August, and
the city was shivering in the rain and the neon lights were running hazy
through the fog-covered windows and Saad was standing under a rusted archway of
a railway bridge, where the minutes were creeping round the dial of an old
station clock. The railway station was empty, much more silent than normal, the
bangs of his boots sounded very loud on wet concrete. He was not expected to be
there, there were no trains running after midnight, but he had been drawn out
of his flat, he had no idea why. There was no name on his pocket ticket, and no
price, and no destination--just a time: 12:01 AM. He did not recall the
purchase of the ticket. He just happened to find it that morning, and he
crawled under his apartment door like a shadow. His roommate dismissed it as a
joke of some sort. but as the night came in a strange attraction, like that of
one speaking in the rain, called him on. And here was he on Platform 11 3/4, a
place that was overgrown and shut-off, no one spoke about it. it was not on
either map, and the signs had long since been scraped away, and yet somehow, in
the way of feet, he had come. It was about the time the clock struck the stroke
of midnight when he heard the low rumble. A train--not noisy, but rumbling, as
though thunder were in the depths of the earth--was coming, and was drawing
sluggishly as though it had come out of some tunnel that you could not see. It
was a train old, sleek and old, like the kind you see in dreams or grandma stories.
His train hissed to a stop. None of the conductors came out. No door opened to
it. But Saad did not need an invitation. His hands clutched the ticket, and
with an intake of breath which he had not known that he was drawing, he got on
board.
Chapter 2: The Train That Didn’t Belong
The train was warm and golden inside. Fluorescent lights and
digital panels were not used--just oil lamps that rocked to the rhythm of
velvet seats and wooden floors that made me think of cedar and old books. The
air was heavy with nostalgia. It all seemed so old and yet so undisturbed, that
the train must have been in existence ever since the beginning of time. The
passengers were seated in their seats, each staring straight ahead and wearing
the covering of their hoods or hats. There was no one talking. No one stirred Soon
he came to columns of empty and occupied seats, and, taking one labeled with
the number of his ticket, 7M, he went inside. The solitary window looked out on
nothing--streaks of black and silver, and it seemed as though the train was not
so much passing through space, as through time itself. When he moved to sit
down, he saw on the small table before him a journal. It was made of leather,
and embossed with a peculiar device--a half moon with a compass in it. Anyone
who opens this journal will see that it is dated the 13th of July 1894.
“Welcome, Passenger. This train can only go forward Destination: What You
Forgot.” There was something in those words which touched him in the breast. What
was it he forgot? Who had given him this ticket? The questions swirled around
him like the mist, yet, before he could brood, the train made a slight jerk and
so did his heart. This was no common journey in the least.
Chapter 3: The Conductor With No Face
It was in an intermediate state between dream and
wakefulness that a figure came to the door of Saad. The cabin light went down a
little, and the door creaked open. There was a tall man, or something
resembling a man, standing there, in a long overcoat, with a cap pulled down
over his face. He did not say anything at the moment. In place of that, he gave
Saad a little card. It was empty. and twice the conductor tapped the blank card
with a gloved finger, and words began to bleed into it like ink in water: What
art thou in search of? Saad looked at the card with a dry throat. He did not
know what to say. The thing of it was, he did not know why he was there. Part
of him wanted to get out of the loneliness that had overwhelmed his life after
the death of his mother two years ago. There was another part that wished to
think that it was a dream. But above it all, there was a little voice inside
telling him that he had to be here and there must be some reason long forgotten
under the blanket of guilt and silence. Saad said in a low voice, I want...
peace. The conductor nodded, but Saad could not see him. He indicated the
window. Then you shall know of the night you forgot--said the figure, and his
voice was as paper on stone. And then he was away, as quietly as he had come. The
window glowed, and was no longer black. This one was revealing a memory, his
former house, his mother in her garden, and a ten-years-old Saad running
through the jasmine vines with laughter in the chest. Saad forgot where he was,
for a moment. It was so actual, so vivid, that he reached toward it as though
he might reach it. But it melted, as smoke in the wind, and left the ache.
Chapter 4: Compartment of the Lost
The hours--or was it years?--slid by and Saad was able to
explore more of the train. Both compartments appeared to be in a reality of
their own. One had clocks that went backwards. The other had doors, which
opened to oceans, deserts and war zones-memories of the long-lost passengers. He
found a woman wearing 1940s clothing in one car and knitting what she stated
was an endless scarf. It is, she said very softly, eyes staring into a long
way, a stitch a sorrow never said. There was also a compartment with nothing
but a lot of mirrors, though not one of them reflected Saad. They presented
instead, versions of him: the one that never got out of his dreams, the one
that got married to the girl he loved in college, the one that became a
musician rather than an accountant. It was hypnotic and tragic. It occurred to
him at the moment that the Midnight Train was not transporting people
somewhere. It was leading them to themselves.
Chapter 5: A Door Without a Handle
Saad traveled further into the bowels of the train and found
a passageway illuminated by candlelight. It ended in a door such as had never
been seen before--it was made of a dark wood which beat gently, like a living
thing. There was no handle, no knob, no keyhole on the door, strangely enough. upon
it was only an engraving cut deep into the surface in running script: He shall
enter only the forgiving. He looked at it blankly. Forgive whom? He had wasted
the last two years in being afraid of that word. His mother had died suddenly,
and since then he had become distant with his father, and unfairly felt that he
was at fault, that he had not made clear signs, he had not said things. It was
more than a year since they last talked to each other. It was not hatred, at
least. It was the silence full of pain. Saad was aware that he had pushed the
pain deep inside and was trying to pretend that it was not there. And this door
required sincerity. It was called for by the train. Some time he stood there in
the wavering light. Then, very quietly, as though it were a prayer, he added,
“I forgive him.” He did not know whether he was serious. He would have liked
to. That, maybe, was sufficient. The door creaked open slowly, the wood glowed
back in response and its edges were as soft as melted wax. It was not another
room, but a still library with lanterns floating in it. The walls were lined
with books, all written by hand, all with names on them his name on them. He
took hold of it.
Chapter 6: The Book of One Life
Saad picked up the book with his name on it and read about
his life not in chapters but moments. Other pages were filled with the aroma of
sunshine, of mirth, and of jasmine--the fragrance of gladness. Others stank of
regret. The pages were the truths he had not wanted to confront: how he had
stifled his love of writing due to fear, how he had allowed routine to choke
his soul, how he had allowed important people to be lost to him because he
thought that he had all the time in the world. A page, in gold, was inscribed: The
evening that loved ones ceased dreaming.” It told of an instant he had long
forgotten--a wet night two years ago, when his mother had sat beside him and
said in a low voice, "You were to be a story-teller, Saadi. Not to crunch
numbers.” He had laughed it away. She had smiled, but he had seen in her eyes
disappointment covered by love. She passed away on the following day That was
the night he ceased to write, to dream. It was the train, he saw, which had
brought him back here not to punish him, but to remind him. To make him see
what he had left and what he could repossess. Tremblingly he shut the book.
Chapter 7: Ghosts in the Dining Car
It was the latter part of the night that he found himself in
the dining car. Although the train was old fashioned, the table was full of
items which seemed to be in all corners of his memory, his mother made daal
chawal, the chicken patties that he used to have in his school canteen and the
chocolate milk that he drank during cartoons. People that he had once loved sat
around the table, his grandparents, his childhood best friend who had moved
away, his college mentor. They grinned at him and said nothing, but what they
said was louder than words. He sat down and found that these were not ghosts in
the haunting sense. These were recollections, recollections of the love that
had made him. The dining car was not silent; it was full of silence. Warm with
the second chances, with that kind of hope that you can smell in the house. He
sobbed into his chai, not because he was disconsolate, but because he was
relieved. The train did not feel like a machine that night. It was as though it
were a living being and was the vehicle of the lost souls, to help them to see
parts of themselves in the forgotten nooks.
Chapter 8: The Station Beyond Names
The train started to slow in the morning. The conductor came
back and his face was not seen but he is comforting now. He gave Saad another
ticket. This was the one that read: Return: You Are Ready. Saad could see
through the window a station in golden morning sunlight. No signs, no
billboards, no digital signs--just the smell of wet earth and a flutter of
music on the breeze. This was a station that could not be found on a map. It
was in between worlds, and those who had at last become ready to make the
journey back--not to the past, but to their own future. He got out of the train
and turned to face it once again. The Midnight Train sighed a little, as a
lullaby does when it is done with its last verse. Then, and no smoke and no
sound we heard, it just disappeared into the air.
Chapter 9: The Life After Midnight
Saad woke up in his apartment with the odor of rain. The
time was six-oh-three in the morning. The ticket that had given such
curiousness was gone, and his coat, which, the night before, had been left wet
through, was now dry as ever. Nothing was the same and nothing changed. His
heart was more light, his breath more deep, his mind more calm. It was during
the morning of the day he had opened his laptop in years not to open his emails
or scroll through social media as he was supposed to do but to write. Not to
work, not to fame. To write, to write. The words were the water dammed up in
his fingers. He called his dad at night. They spoke a little--of nothing--and
there were little silences little silences and in them something new peace.
Chapter 10: The Echo That Lingers
Weeks passed. Things went on as usual in life Saad heard a
noise now and then, once in a while late at night. There is a murmur, as though
trains were passing, not on steel, but on those of memory. He lost the ticket
once more and never got it back Did not see the conductor And at other times,
when he passed the old railway station, he fancied he saw something twinkling
at the end of it--a platform which should not be, between worlds. He was not
dreaming it up in his imagination The train was not imaginary Not to every one.
And to any who had lost themselves, had to be healed, had to remember how it
was to dream, the Midnight Train to Nowhere would always arrive, on time.
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