The Drink Tank Issue 255

The Train Issue Part II

[email protected] Here we are again, working on a zine. I have to admit, that I am enjoying working with Chris, here, and on Exhibition Hall, and also on Journey Planet with Claire Brialey and occassionally Pete Young, as well as Chris. For me, the easy part is always, ideas, words, concepts and how something should look, whereas anything technical, is just not to my liking and therefore boring, a hard task, and something I won’t find easy to do. I consider myself lucky, that with these partnerships, all of which involve the Great Garcia, he seems to love the laying out, and fiddly fitting togther of everything, AS WELL, as ideas and everything else and writing. Anyhow, Trains, we love em, and we also love all those who have written about them, again thanks are due to these awesome contributors! cheers to them and to you for reading James Bacon Art This issue Special Issues Editor! Cover From Buster Keaton’s The General. Page 1, 2, 4, 5, 21 by Richard Kiterman (http://rlkiterman.deviantart.com/), Page 17 by Frank Wu So, why do a sequel to an issue of a Fanzine? Well, there’s a lot of good reasons, but the best is because there’s a lot more to say. For me, this issue is a bit different because it focuses more away from the Train thing and more on Trains in other things, or trains as platforms for other things. A train as a site for a convention, a train as a part of a movie, songs inspired by trains, and so on. There’s a lot to say about trains and stations and train museums and so on, but there’s a lot to say about the things that make Trains a part of something bigger. I like that. I always like relating things to stuff outside of themselves.

One thing I love about trains that’s hard to talk about in an article is what they mean as a a part of a trip. Most travelers have something that makes their method of journeying into something special. For me, trains are about reading. Usually when I go places, I bring reading material. As I noted in my first LoC to Banana Wings, I read and, if necessary, re-read things when I’m on a train or subway. The books that I’ve read on trains include Gail Carriger’s Changeless, Phillip K. Dick is Dead, Alas by Michael Bishop, Losers Live Longer (a Hard Case Crime book), Retromancer (on the train on my way out to England last March), and Dhalgren. I’m serious when I say that I had it in my mind that I’d read all of Dhalgren on a 24 hour train trip but I got less than 200 pages in because I kept have to flip back and struggle over the words. It was a rough day’s reading.

I know folks who love trains because they get to see the landscape passing by. To me, that’s a waste. You’re geting somewhere fast, but you’re in control of that time. Your time on a train is your own and you can spend it reading (which is usually my choice) or writing fanzines (I did a lot of that in England on my TAFF trip and a bit on my more recent journey with Linda) or even just think out how you’re going to let your girlfriend of 3 years down when you get there (that was ONE TIME and it was a long time ago!). Driving, you’ve gotta pay attention. Flying, there are too many rules and I’m too busy freakin’ out because the physics of flight are a total fraud that has been perpetrated on the world, but on trains, you can use your time as you will...within reason (see all That Guy on the Train That One Time).

So, I hope you enjoy this second issue of The Drink Tank dedicated to the world created and influenced by Trains!

~Chris Garcia - July 29th, 2010 The Nine-Hundred Mile Dead Dog Party route called The City of New Orleans. It runs lounge car simply ignored us for must of the By Randy Smith between Chicago and New Orleans, timed so time, except to make an occasional comment Many fans shudder at the mention that it can connect with other Amtrak routes if he thought we were talking about something of NolaCon II, the 1988 worldcon in New at both ends. In the ‘80s it used “heritage” cars interesting. Orleans. Shuddering is an appropriate reaction. which were single-level coaches with a few We did manage to sing one song that I will not go into everything that went wrong at domed observation cars. There was no full was not strictly a filk song. It seemed to some that convention. There are con reports from dining service at that time and food was only of us, and especially to Andy, who was providing the time that will tell you more than you will available in the lounge car. our instrumental accompaniment, that since ever need to know. As we hungry fans made our way to the we were riding on The City of New Orleans What most of those reports will not lounge car, we encountered one another and we should sing “The City of New Orleans,” mention is that there was a great party that began to party. Andy Anda, Bill Leininger, 2009 the song written by Steve Goodman and began a short cab ride away from the con CUFF winner, LeAmber Kinsley, along with a popularized by Arlo Guthrie. As I recall, we hotels soon after the official end of the con goodly number of members of the Winnipeg did not remember all of the words, but at least and continued until the early morning hours in ’94 Bid Committee and some filkers from we tried, and at least we managed to sing one of the next day in Chicago. Confused? It was points east all managed to gather at about non-filk song to make our young non-fan friend a travelling party held aboard The Train They the same time. Andy had his lute (or was it a happy. Call The City of New Orleans, and it was faan- mandolin?) with him and when he tuned it up Filking was not our only activity. There tastic! I should know. I was there. the filking began in earnest. was also much delightful fannish conversation When Amtrak took over nearly all As I recall, there were only two and we were well plied with the food and drink intercity passenger rail in the United States in mundanes in the car. At one point, one of being served by the lounge car attendant. In 1971 they continued the old Illinois Central them--a young man who trying hard to be a nearly every way it was just like any other part of the group despite the fannish party except that it was passing through fact that he did not speak five states while it was happening. fannish and had not just come When we arrived at Chicago in the from a con—turned to me morning, we all dispersed in different directions. and asked, “Why don’t they Chicago area fans boarded commuter trains sing something everybody to the suburbs, the Minneapolis and Winnipeg knows?” fans took the Empire Builder to the northwest, I could only respond and the Great Lakes fans left on the Lakeshore that they were singing songs Limited. I boarded the California Zephyr to get that nearly everyone present back to Nebraska. either knew or could relate This would be neither the first nor the to in some way. It really last time that I would take a train to the con. wasn’t his fault that the On other trips, I would manage to connect words, “I am Dorsai,” were with other fans. Somehow, the atmosphere meaningless to him. The we created on the trip from New Orleans to only other non-fan in the Chicago never happened again. Maybe it was because there were more fans on that trip than on some of the others. Maybe the personalities involved managed to gel just in the right way. I’ll probably never know for sure why that trip was so unique. Prior to ConFrancisco in 1993 I tried to connect with other fans who might have been riding to the con on the California Zephyr. I had hoped that if we did some pre-planning we might be able to put together another fun travelling party. I failed. I may be wrong, but I suspect that the experience of 1988 simply cannot be recreated intentionally. The whole experience was too serendipitous. I had a great time. So did everyone else who was there. How do I know this? It has continued to live in all of our memories. Even now, twenty-two years later, whenever I see another of the fans who was on that trip, we talk about it. Sometimes someone will come up to me at a party or the in hallway at a con and say, “Hey, I remember you from the train trip after NolaCon, and I respond, “Oh, you were there, too!” The memories of many other fannish parties may fade or run together, but those of us who experienced it will never forget the nine hundred mile dead dog party.

“The only way to be sure of catching a train is to miss the one before it.” Change at Waterloo for Oakworth posters on the walls that are over a year out of date, when the platforms by Tony Keen have no trains and the rails are rusted solid … all this is strange. (There are A few dates. In about 1872, Edith plans to return the platforms to use Nesbit moved to Halstead in Kent, close to eventually. South West Trains would the Tonbridge–London railway line (at the like to use the platforms for their time open for about four years). In 1905, she suburban services, to enable them to took the experience of watching the trains run more trains. But at the moment on that line, and put it into a charming story, the track layout at Waterloo’s throat The Railway Children (it was serialized in The doesn’t allow full exploitation of the London Magazine, and published as a novel in International platforms, so it hasn’t 1906). In 1970, well-known British character yet happened.) actor Lionel Jeffries (who died earlier in 2010), The audience enters a black made his debut foray into film direction, with tent, within which the theatre has an adaptation of The Railway Children filmed on at Waterloo International was too good to been set up. The central stage area the recently re-opened Keighley and Worth pass up. In the end, it turned out to be part is mocked up to look like a railway station Valley Railway in West Yorkshire. The film, of a slightly Edwardian week – two days later I of the early twentieth century, with wooden together with Walkabout the next year, made gave a paper on H.G. Wells’ The First Men in the platforms, luggage waiting transportation, a a star of Jenny Agutter, who had already played Moon, published in 1901, and the Earthbound footbridge, and signal boxes at both ends. A the role of Bobbie, eldest of the Waterbury sections of which take place in Romney Marsh, single track runs through the platforms, along children, on television in 1968 (the BBC’s third close to where Nesbit was to die, a quarter of which wooden flats are pushed. With these version) and would return to the story again in a century later. flats, and the audience’s willing suspension of 2000, this time playing the Waterbury mother. It was odd walking into Waterloo disbelief, the station set is transformed into In 2008 and 2009, the York Theatre Royal put International. Ever since High Speed 1, the different locations, such as the inside of trains, on a production on real railway tracks (at fast line from the Channel Tunnel to London, and various front rooms or bedrooms. The the National Railway Museum), using a real was opened (in 2007), and the International suspension of disbelief required is hardly more steam locomotive. In 2010, that production Station relocated from Waterloo to St Pancras, than that needed in the film to believe that transferred to London, where it was mounted platforms 19-22 of Waterloo have been mostly the sleepy branch line station of Oakworth in the currently disused Waterloo International deserted. I have to confess, I never particularly is actually on a main route from London to station. liked Waterloo International on the occasions I Scotland. I am undecided as to whether being I went. How could I not? Even before travelled from there; it seemed to be designed able to hear the South West Trains services one considers the Tonbridge connection (the around the principle of making international rail depart from the main station adds to or line where Nesbit waved at the trains is the travel every bit as unpleasant as international detracts from the experience. route I take every time I come into London air travel. But entering the station when there Over the years, the Keighley and – indeed, part of this article has been written were far fewer people there, when none of Worth Valley Railway has become very closely whilst passing Halstead Hall, the Nesbits’ the travelators are working, when there are associated with The Railway Children. The residence), the chance of a steam locomotive 1968 BBC version was the first to film there, with the co-operation of the Keighley and probably for much the same reason that Jeffries Worth Valley Railway, so it’s not surprising that later chose it – the story calls for a tunnel, the shadow of the film lies quite heavily over and the only other standard-gauge preserved this production. Whilst the railway company line at that time, the Bluebell in Sussex, whilst remains Nesbit’s fictional Great Northern and much closer to production companies, etc., in Southern Railway (which might in 1905 imply London, could not offer such a facility. (In 1994, one with main routes both north and south the Bluebell’s extension north to Kingscote of the Thames), the station that the action added a tunnel at Sharpthorne, so the 2000 mostly revolves around remains Oakworth. television version was duly filmed there.) The roles of the Station Master and Perks the This has resulted in some believing that the Porter are, as in the film, combined. The main novel is set in Yorkshire, though in fact Nesbit incidents remain those from the film, though never specifies the location, being deliberately in some cases fleshed out with more details vague, save for the fictional nearby town of taken from the novel – but the novel’s episodes Maidbridge. Characters in the novel speak in on the canal and in the signal box are absent. a variety of regional dialects, some of which These are both incidents in which the younger could be northern but some of which seem children, Peter and Phyllis, feature, but Bobbie more southern. For a number of reasons – the does not, and it is notable how both film and Waterburys are plainly living in the suburbs this production make Peter less of a driving of London at the beginning of the novel and force of events than he is in the novel. no cause is given for them moving further out And adapter Mike Kenny keeps the device in the country than the Home Counties; the of making Bobbie the narrator of the story, journey to Three Chimneys, though long, is beginning the story with her as an adult, before rather obvious in the film is played down on begun in the late afternoon and completed in flashing back to make this a memory story. But stage. the same day, which makes Yorkshire unlikely at here the narration is expanded to include the The locomotive used is Great Northern 1905 train journey speeds; the Old Gentleman other Waterbury siblings, and the device is used Railway G Class Stirling Single 4-2-2 No. 1. commutes every day on the 9:15, and seems throughout, as opposed to Jeffries’ film, which This was built in 1870, and withdrawn in 1907, to be doing so into London; and the childhood employs it only sparingly, most obviously at the so it is contemporary with the book. It was memories that inspired Nesbit have their beginning and the end. an actual express passenger locomotive, as origins in Kent – I suspect Nesbit envisaged the There are differences between this opposed to the motley collection of tanks and story taking place somewhere in the south- version and the film, though. The father’s early small freight locos seen in the film – this sort east, if not perhaps quite as close to London assertion that girls are just as good as boys is of loco hauled the ‘Flying Scotsman’ (at that as Halstead. (However, a case has been made retained (it is often said that Nesbit did not time still officially known as the ‘Special Scotch recently for some of the details being taken support the suffragette movement, but whilst Express’). In 1905, some top link services on from New Mills in Derbyshire, where Nesbit she may not have openly approved of their the East Coast Main Line remained in the hands had relatives, and which she visited.) activities, she clearly had some sympathy for of Stirling Singles, though they were beginning The 2010 production has been made their aims). The snobbery that now seems to be displaced by H.G. Ivatt’s 4-4-2 Atlantics. (The London-Tonbridge services of the South Eastern and Chatham Railway used 4-4-0s, some scenes, such as when the Old Gentleman birthday in 1905 would be eighteen or nineteen some of which had been designed by James realizes who the Russian at Three Chimneys in August 1914, twenty-two or twenty-three Stirling, younger brother of Patrick; Patrick is, that are even played better than in the in November 1918. Peter belongs to that Stirling was responsible for designing the film. There is even a moment of audience generation that was cut down in the fields Stirling Singles.) participation, similar to that in Peter Pan (and of Flanders or on the beaches of Gallipoli. For much of the play, the passing of perhaps inspired by the scene at the beginning Perhaps it is appropriate that the programme trains is represented not by the physical of the 1970 film where to Waterburys go to a for this production includes an advert for War locomotive, but by son et lumière effects. This production of Peter Pan). Horse. The Railway Children is emblematic of an increases the impact of the Stirling Single All of these elements go together innocence that England was soon to lose, and when it makes its first appearance, just before to make a marvellous piece of theatre, that that it has never recovered. the interval. The engine is not, however, in is well worth seeing. But there’s one other full steam (I don’t think the locomotive is shadow hanging over this production, one This production of The Railway Children currently in full working order, but I’m not that Nesbit could never have foreseen, but runs in Waterloo until 4th September 2010. Next absolutely sure). Rather, there appears to have which is introduced by having the adult Peter year it is hoped to be presented in another major been a smoke pot placed in the chimney. It’s at the beginning of the play. I found myself British city (my guess is Manchester, in the under- rather like the effect Hornby got when they wondering what the adult Peter was doing, utilised platforms of Manchester Victoria). introduced smoke units in the 1970s – indeed, I and realizing that a boy who had his tenth almost expected a giant hand with a pipette to drop a spot of oil from above. Nevertheless, the presence of the locomotive and some carriages, one of which was the Director’s Saloon used in the film, adds to the success of this production. But they are not the only reasons why it is highly enjoyable. For a start, it remains a superb story. It is episodic, true, but the episodes build upon each other, leading to the inevitable conclusion. Yes, it is also sentimental, but in a good way (and it is a children’s story, after all). The final scene will still make you cry. And this production also has a rather superb cast, of whom Caroline Harker is probably the best known. The dialogue is evidently meant to be delivered swiftly and punchily, and all the cast handle this well (one advantage of using adults playing children, rather than children themselves). There are Prison Blues by Johnny Cash, Casey Jones by it was the SAME Janis Ian? I mean, I talked to My Favorite Train Songs the Greatful Dead, (Come On) Ride The Train, her for like two minutes at a WorldCon and no Wabash Cannonball, Chattanooga Choo-Choo, one ever said “You know, she had a couple of by Chris Garcia City of New Orleans, Crazy Train, Last Train hits in the 1960s!” Shame on you all! There are a lot of songs about trains. Running, Ride the Rails, Train Song and focus on This Train Still Runs is what I call a In fact, the musical development of the United those that I really just flat-out can’t get enough Locomotive song. It’s a metaphor, and let’s face States was heavily influenced by those who of. Yes, some of them are a little obscure it, trains are big, iron-hard metaphors, and it rode the rails, especially the forms we call the because hey, my CD collection is full of little- works. It’s got some great lyrics, but largely, it’s Blues, Country and Bluegrass. Some of the known CDs I bought in a dollar bin, but others a song saying ‘Hey you, I ain’t finished yet’. It’s earliest recordings sold in the US were of songs are well-known and delightful! the kind of song that you’d think a boxer out that had been written by men as they rode the So, here are my personal favorites, all of there in his punch-drunk years, would have rails. Scott Joplin, the greatest Pop songwriter them making me want to hope on board and running through his head as the bell rings up of the 20th Century, wrote The Great Crush take this show a little further down the line… against the newish young turk. It’s a beautiful Collision March about a legendary Texas This Train Still Runs by Janis Ian piece of songwriting. train wreck. Jimmy Rodgers, the man most First off, why didn’t anyone tell me that The Draize Train by The Smiths responsible for creating what we thought of as Rank is one of those albums that Country music up until the mid-1980s, was The shouldn’t exist. Basically, it was The Smiths Singing Brakeman after his time on Mobile & putting out a life record to satisfy a contract. Ohio Railway. He’s the Father of Country, so it They’d already broke up, Morrissey was out would make sense that there have been many on his own and I think Johnny Mar had already amazing Country songs about the rails and started working with The The. The best song on the life one led upon them. Roy Acuff, Boxcar the album was easily The Queen is Dead, but Willie, Bill Monroe and Woody Guthrie were The Draize Train was rather a magical piece. doing Train songs that were heard around the The Draize Train is an instrumental country on radio, which turned on another that at first sounds very little like The Smiths. generation of musicians like Johnny Cash, Bob It feels more like something that a 1990s Cure Dylan and Patsy Cline. might record. It’s a gorgeous song, but most Rock is what happens when know importantly, without any real hint, even if it Jump Blues get together with Country lyricists. wasn’t called The Draize Train, I’d be thinking Following on the words of Cash and Dylan about trains, about riding across industrial were rock bands as diverse as The Doobie towns with 15 feet and weed-pocked gravel Brothers, The Rolling Stones, Crosby, Stills & patches on either side of a pair of rails. This is a Nash, Janis Joplin and The Beatles. Those led to song of Manchester, of those cities that existed bands like the Smiths and the Cure, all doing on the line that were sent into decline. This is a songs about trains; some in the concrete, some song where the rhythm guitar is the power, the in the extreme abstract. bass is the speed, the lead guitar is the passing I’ll skip the really obvious ones, Folsom scene and the drums play movement. It’s an amazing effect that comes from throwing them Into You Like A Train by the Psychedelic an even bigger fan of the album i. all together. The Smiths aren’t the kind of band Furs Born on a train uses train imagery I expect that sort of musicianship from, but this This is another one of those songs that to indicate the fleeting nature of a train, the time, they destroy it, make a song that is full of isn’t about trains, but it uses Train imagery to rootlessness of it. There is no possible anchor both effect and reflection. bring home its point along with a rhythmic on a train. It passes back and forth, one way signature that feels like a train rolling down then another. It is never stable, and one who First Train Home by Imogen Heap the tracks. It’s a powerful song in any light, but was birthed in that sort of environment can I love Imogen Heap. When I got to there’s something more to it. never be tied, can not survive in the tank that exchange one brief sentence with her, I knew Into You Like A Train sounds like a train is an interpersonal relationship. The lyrics here she was one of the most amazing woman bursting out of a tunnel with all the violence are heart-breaking. There is an amazing set of on Earth. She’s also very tall. I had only and blinding light you’d expect. I remember lyrics that shows why this is bird loving the experienced her music through a Saturday when I first heard it and rewinding the tape clouds. “I know that you were never young, /And Night Live skit, but I saw her in 2009 and I so I could hear it again. That was the measure I know you probably won’t get old./But honey, was amazed at song after song, even when of a masterful song.It starts off fast with the nobody’s gonna hurt you anymore./And nobody’s some of them flew away from her wildly, I was drums breaking up the time into fast repeating gonna make you wanna die” This is the kind enraptured. telephone poles passing windows and the of writing that I love in my music. It’s almost The song she did that hit me hardest synths and lead guitar just there to hang better reading the lyrics because it’s even more was First Train Home. It’s a song about the something for the squeaking of wheels and the resoundingly devastating. waiting required with getting from place to sound of air and overheads passing. It’s another place, about how the journey isn’t the fun part, powerful song where the lyrics are heavy. The it’s the part that makes you feel useless. One violence of the imagery is everywhere. How set of lyrics, which I immediately Lycosed when could a train be anything but violent? It’s like I Never Did No Wanderin’ by The I got home really set me right on the path I that song There is a Light That Never Goes had started down with the song. And then Out by The Smiths with it’s double-decker there was a confusion, something about how bus crashing into the young lovers. It’s a harsh the singer was pushing all those feelings into… image, but it’s also what every teenager believes something. It was the singer both fleeing from their emotions represent: the end off all things a terrible encounter (and one that had started real and true. It’s a gorgeous song. feverishly, it would seem) and praying from the release of a fast train, and realizing that perhaps Born On A Train by The Magnetic Fields that was equally as bad as waiting it out in the The Magnetic Fields is a band that is hurting. It was one of those songs that I looked more or less one vision. That vision’s name is at and saw shadows that contradicted my every Stephin Merritt. He’s a deep-voiced crooner of thought, and that only made me want to engage a fashion, and a songwriter who has an amazing deeper. This was a song with too much power, depth of feeling in his cynical bittersweet love it would seem, but it was one that I fell in love songs. 69 Love Songs might be one of the with. greatest albums of the last decade, though I’m Folksmen (Or The New Main Street song. This is what serious Folkies will point drums that are the driving wheels. But there’s Singers) to as the reason they’re into folk. Then there way more to it than that. This is the obligatory comedic song are those who point to the New Main Street You see, Mike is poking at those on the list and it’s also the one from a movie. Singers’ version as the one that folks who sat Country Brakeman songs and Dylan and Johnny Christopher Guest, or Christopher Haden- around on a Sunday night watching Ed Sullivan Cash and at the same tie paying them nothing Guest, 5th Baron Haden-Guest, has done a would have seen and loved. And the fact that but respect with the song. It’s so over the top series of largely improvised films, one of which, it’s a song which opens with the line “My mama with the train metaphor and sound, including A Mighty Wind, covered an Alternate Universe was the cold North wind, my father was the a breakdown at the end that is straight out of Folk Music Scene that even Lee Hoffman would son of a railroad man from West of Hell, where every Greatful Dead jam at the end of their have recognized as close to the real thing. Two the trains don’t even run.” It was so obvious, latest song about driving their train high on of the groups, The Folksmen (Guest, Michael folk was always about trains! Every folks song whatever it is that Micky got his hands on McKean and Harry Shearer, better known ever was written about trains so if you’re gonna that afternoon. It’s a great, heavy and fun song. as the primaries of Spinal Tap) had a hit with make fun of folk, it has to be through a song There’s all sorts of innuendo and fun, but really, their version of Never Did No Wanderin’, a about trains. it’s juts a great song. beautiful song with a powerful backbone to it. It reminded me of one of those songs from Big Train by Mike Watt Train by Goldfrapp the 1960s from bands like Peter, Paul & Mary Ball-Hog or Tugboat was one of the best Of all the music I discovered on my or The Kingston Trio. It’s a great song, actually, albums that I purchased while I was in college. TAFF trip, nothing compared to Goldfrapp. I even when it’s played straight and not for Mike Watt was the bassist for fIREHOSE and first heard of them in the seat-back magazine laughs. The Minutemen, and then he went solo. Big on the train from London to Cardiff. The 1980s In the film, the New Main Street Singers Train was the first single off the album and it vibe was strong and when I got home, I bought end up going first on the big show, and they did really well on the Modern Rock charts and two of their albums. open with Never Did No Wanderin’, but in 120 Minutes. One of them had the song Train. a fashion that is far more peppy, or as Harry Big Train features the deep bass growl Now, Train is another metaphor, this Shearer calls it, “A toothpaste commercial”. of Watt with that razor-sharp guitar that just time for the inevitable movement of the Los Oddly, it’s a great rendition with a very cool makes you think of trees whipping by and Angeles lifestyle. First you leave the station arrangement. It’s the kind of song that those and you’re repulsed by those others you see who hate folk music will hate because it’s out the window when you arrive. Within six everything bad with folk. It’s also the kind of months, you’re doin’ all those things yourself. song that those who really love folks will hate It’s a train, unstoppable, powerful, a drive that because yeah, it’s a toothpaste commercial. But you don’t control – you’re just there for the it’s a fuckin’ great toothpaste commercial. ride. Every star says they’re going to be the Now, here’s the thing: these are so one that doesn’t get dragged down, but those effective because it’s everything that people tracks don’t go nowhere new, they just go from who know a little about folk music will here to there. Unmoveable, unchanging. It’s recognize. There’s the serious version done by depressing, but so very true. serious musicians that is a great and moving I then did a search for songs with bands that I heard on Phantom FM, in Dublin, Music in Motion train in the title, and gave up, as there were an indie Rock station that was illegal, and now hundreds. is all legit. The song is light enough, with one of by James Bacon But first to the greatest band to ever come out my favourite themes, Love, teenage angst and It’s interesting that Chris talks about of Australia; AC/DC. There song Rock N’Roll heartbreak and it’s got that guitar rock feel to Music and Railways, I would have said that Train is a superb tune, it is real rock. AC/DC it. Blues, and also a lot of Country Music would has a unique following in Ireland, especially in Ocean Colour Scene are a lighter rock look at trains as a theme. Then I started to the country, where no matter how straight, band, that really had an anthem with a song sift through my albums, you know the actual short haired and neat the lads might look, you about a Train, entitled The Day We Caught CD things that are on shelves. After I while, start chanting Angus and they’ll all be joining The Train. The album Mosley Shoals released I cracked open Spotify, it’s an online jukebox, you. Now this song is off a much more recent in 1996, was pretty good, I especially like the with lots of music, well nearly all I would need Album, is a little softer than my favourites, but part on this track that reminds me of the small at least, except AC/DC and Metallica, and found it has all the strength, of a classic work. There is faces, where there is some shouting, even one or two more. a superb animation of Angus, driving a runaway though the band had been around ages, and steam train, being attacked would soon be gone. The song is quite good. by two gorgeous women, Ever since Johnny Cash did HURT by and all ending in a train Nine Inch Nails, or is that by Trent Reznor, he crash, which was shown at found some sort of incredible following within the beginning of their tour. the metal/rock community, in the sense that Steam Train to Radio Stations could play his music and get Mallaig, as performed by away with it. Now Cash had done a number the Brian Boru Irish Pipe of tunes about trains, (er that would be loads Band, and is my favourite actually) but I really like On the Evening Train, version of this very quick it’s very poignant. Although Train of Love, a and upbeat piped reel. cumming, happy hearts a drumming, stop your It’s played by quite a few whistle blowing, is all a bit tongue in cheek isn’t bands, although recordings it? Either way, I like these tunes although; my where, an obviously favourite Cash tune is Ring of Fire. American Train Bell is Train songs conjure many images in my playing as the fore play, is a brain, but I would lie if I didn’t mention ‘Time bit unrealistic. Mallaig is in Flies By’. There was a children’s programme Scotland after all, and The called Camberwick Green, which spawned Black Watch ‘ladies from Trumpton and Chigley. These were stop motion hell’ do it proud as well. animated programmes, with awesome model I really like Last people, from the 60’s produced by the BBC. Train Home by The Lost Now in Chigley, there was a Lord, and this Lord Prophets, one of the rock had a Hobby and Business which was the one and the same, he had a train. Every episode through and Dave daw him and spoke to him, heading out in the back streets of the big city. It Bessie would be produced. he asked if we were coming to the gig, and would be one of those nights, one of those nights This was the pride and joy of Lord Dave explained that it’s sold out, and soon we when the world stops turning. We would always Belborough of Winkstead Hall, and along with were on the guest list. How awesome was that. end up on a train, heading back to Ruislip or his manservant, Brackett, they would stoke up And so I watched Ozzy, real close, real live, in Uxbridge, and this song, in my head is about the last train from London, leaving town, even though their engine and head off to help save the day, a real dive. I really liked Crazy Train. It’s a great I really want the night to last forever, I really want of some calamity and as the train puffed along, tune. to be with the gang, I want the music of chat and cotton ball steam emanating from the chimney, I saw and believed that Jimi Hendrix laughter and drink to last all night, forever and ever. one could sing along was some sort of pre-metal god. I still do. I have ‘Time flies by when you’re the driver seen many Hendrix cover bands, have a scar of a train, under bridges over bridges, to our from a gig, and have all the singles, destination.... most of the albums and of course Train to Skaville by the Ethiopians, is the collections and even the graphic just incredibly awesome. I suppose it’s really novel. I like James Marshall a lot. Reggae, but it falls into that weird place that I Hear My Train a Coming is one have for SKA music. The Specials are a favourite of the tunes that comes and goes band; Too Much Too Young is awesome. And as you play Hendrix, sure it’s not I regularly upset colleagues when I do any Voodoo Child, but it’s still damn Specials as a Karaoke set. This 1967 tune fine music and as I read comics, sounds like a train, the beat, fast and steady like how could I not love the man. the pistons and instruments and vocal making ‘Star Fleet to Scout ship will the sound of the steam and whistle. you please give me your position I was rather lucky as a teenager; I fell in over’ Jimi Hendrix 3rd Stone from with a moderately bad lot in school, which was the Sun. ‘Imagination is the key to my natural, being a mediocre anti-authoritarian. lyrics. The rest is painted with a little The lads I feel in with were into Metal, and this science fiction.’ Jimi Hendrix. was good, as I could exert some of my teenage I must really write about angst and anger and frustration through music science fictional music at some stage. that I and no one else might understand. So I suppose if I am honest, my it was I found myself outside McGonagall’s, favourite Train song has to be Last Train to London, by the Electric Light er venue, I suppose. I had bunked off school Orchestra, a seventies disco tune. IT and after spending as much money as we had just always reminds me of science on coffee in Burgerland (ersatz Burger King) fiction days and nights out, in London. we went round the record shops and then to I suppose I spent about eleven years hang with a crowd at this venue. Black Sabbath coming over to London and hanging were playing, this very tiny venue, and we had with Stef and doing something, a no money for tickets. Zack, the bassist came Sproutlore event, and a session in the Tun, a ZZ9 celebration or picnic, en gare de La Ciotat, which most film students minute and I got a weird idea. I pitched it to call Train Pulls Into Station. It’s an amazing thing them and they said it sounded like fun. Karen if you’ve never seen a movie before. It starts put on a pair of sunglasses, Jason pulled his with an image of a train in the distance moving Giants cap down over his eyes and I pulled ever closer, eventually filling the entire screen my hood over my head. We walked into the as the train arrives. There is a famous story that classroom, mingling with the Freshmen and at the first showing of the film, the women who transfers, eventually taking seats in separate were sitting in the front row panicked, feeling parts of the lecture hall, all on the aisles. as if they were about to be struck by the train Ed was an old school professor, been at that was coming towards the camera. The story BU since the late 1950s and had stories that he goes that the ladies ran out of the tent that had always told to every class the exact same time been erected to show the films. That’s a good every year. We all knew that the first film he’d Pulling The Train story, and if it’s true is up for debate. show after the administrivia was Train Pulls Into So, the first day of classes after Station, exactly as he had when we had been By Jay Crasdan graduation, those students who stuck around students. We got into our seats, he read the would come back and chat with the prof, talk names of those signed up for the class, then about the projects that they started while said anyone he hadn’t called should come up in class that have still not gone forward. So, afterwards and get the signatures they needed. it wasn’t weird The first day of film school is always the for alumni to be same: they go over who’s in the class, the prof around campus calls role and then they show you A Trip to the the first day of Moon, The Great Train Robbery and, invariably, class. My pal Jason the films of the Lumiere Brothers. and his girlfriend The Lumieres did the first films in Karen showed France in the 1890s and were famous for their up (his project, ‘Actualities’, 52-second short documentaries a 60 minute which they showed as a series at various documentary theatres. Their process was stolen by all sorts about the boxer of people. They made less money than Edison, Hector Macho who wasn’t exactly overly paid by those who Camacho, had yet either licensed or outright stole his designs. to start shooting) It’s part of why most movie-makers moved to and I ran into them Hollywood instead of staying in New Jersey. The in the hall outside Lumiere Brothers first film was of quitting time of Ed’s Introduction at their family’s factory, but that wasn’t their to Film class. We most famous. chatted for a The best now was L’arrivée d’un train “Now, the origins of film are far back in the mists of time…” he gave the speech telling of shadow puppets, zoetropes and on and on. We had all memorized it over the years. He then pulled down the screen and said he was showing one of the most important films of all- time. He still used an old 16mm projector, so he went to the middle of the room and started the projector, five seconds of leader rolling by and then the familiar train started rolling towards the camera. “Oh my God!” Karen yelled, pointing to the screen. “It’s coming right for us!” Jason added, “Run you fools! Run!” And the three of us ran out of the lecture hall. The laughter could be heard all the way down the hall as we ran out into the boiling Boston September afternoon. Trains: The Makers of the Modern World as a set-up piece for the Highway system. engine that used steam. It was also all geared, I love museums. You can blame Forry In fact, the bigger difference would be that as I understand it. That’s a weird deal, having a th Ackerman for that. I’ve always loved walking the English version would focus on the 19 geared track, but what are you gonna do? through exhibits and sucking up everything century while any American attempt would be The first awesome artifact of the there. I also tend to go through them very fast, Twentieth Century focused. exhibition is the Puffing Billy. This isn’t a which has often left anyone who is with me in passenger locomotive, but was used to haul the dust. Mea Culpa and all that. London has coal, like many of the earliest steam engines. three of the museums that are among my faves. Puffing Billy also happens to be the oldest There’s the V&A, which is a passion I share with surviving steam locomotive in the world. The the Lovely & Talented Linda, there’s the British Puffing Billy moved coal, then probably even Museum, which I actually didn’t make it to on more important than oil is today. Puffing Billy, my last trip, and there’s the Science Museum. which was a Celebrity Train, was a major Out of all the exhibitions I’ve been to in the US, influence on perhaps the greatest of all train Canada and the UK, I can say without question designers: George Stephenson. that the Science Museum has the greatest of them all: Making the Modern World. It’s the story of innovation throughout the world, though focusing heavily on the UK and slightly less on Europe and the US. The exhibit’s in one large gallery that are over-looked by some of the other galleries. It’s positioned to be a central player in the museum. When you have a space like that, one that is over-looked by so much real estate, it’s the obvious focus. It’s also gorgeous and tells a strong story using a variety of exhibit techniques, but often letting the artefacts play the central role like any good exhibit does. The first point where we see a piece Of course, by simply writing those of Railroadery is Trevithick’s model locomotive words, I’ve annoyed any number of museum from about 1797. It was a piece that Mr. professionals who think that path leads only to Trevithick designed to run some experiments the same exhibits we’ve seen over the last 100 in his home. It’s a test piece for an engine years. he’d build a few years later that never really One of the major threads of the exhibit worked (and, as always, it was weight issues is the rise of transportation, and since it’s that hampered it. See also: Space Programme) England, it focuses heavily on the railroads. If it but it was seen as the start of something big. It was an American exhibit, it’d use the railroads was in 1918 that Matthew Murray designed an And Stephenson is the second stop The Rocket could make 29 miles per Built in 1845, it’s the perfect example of on the Tour de Locomotive. His greatest hour, which is pretty amazing considering the 1840s passenger trains. It was in service as a achievement is often debated, and a very basic design. It could also run for a long-period, passenger line for about 30 years, then was strong argument could be made for his general something that earlier locomotives had serious retired to the old-folks home known as haul. It pushing for the creations of a Locomotive trouble with. The basic design would seem like was finally completely retired in 1902. That’s a Network and the standardized gauge he came a primitive version of trains built for more good long life. up with. I’d say, believing that Hardware is the than a century after its demonstration and That is the end of the focus on trains only thing worth considering, The Rocket is deployment. The Rocket was the first significant in Making the Modern World, sadly. There his greatest achievement. The Rocket was built train to the masses and famous around the wasn’t a lot of new-fangledry going on after to win a contest. There was a call for designs world. The US’ first important train, Tom Thumb the 1840s, but there were significant steps. and the Rocket won it. One of the competing built in 1830 was equally as famous, though the It’s just hard to show all the improvements designs was a stationary Steam Engine that Rocket stayed in service much longer. when so many of the artifacts take up so much pulled cars along. This didn’t win (and for long, Sadly, Stephenson’s earlier train, space. In particular, there’s no real piece from or even medium-haul concepts, it’s really a Locomotion No. 1, is not included in the the great era of trains in the 1930s. That was non-starter, but is the basis on which the San exhibit. It had an explosion in 1828, which also the Steamline Era and one of the most visually Francisco Cable Cars were built. influenced the way they built the Rocket. They striking, as well as a majorly important part of did include a miniature model of Locomotion the story of the development of modern train No. 1 in the exhibit in one of the side cases. travel. Something like the existing Duchess of It’s a great model from the 1870s, made to Hamilton or the Mallard. Of course, you can celebrate the 50th anniversary of it’s launching. still see those at the National Railway Museum, There are tons of engines, lathes, clocks a site I hope to visit when I’m out there again and other pieces in the exhibit. It’s great to in 2012. see, but the early part of the exhibit seems to be psychologically dominated by the trains, partly because they are the biggest physical objects. Britain went through a strong patch of Railroad Fever in the 1840s. So much so that it’s said that the basic form of the British Railway Network as we know it today was already in place by 1850. That’s a crazy statement, but it does make sense. Tons of new designs popped up, including the one that became the Columbine on the Grand Junction Railway. Iron Horse A story by Shariann Lewitt My father killed Jack Morning when I was six years old. He never spoke of it, not to my brothers or my aunt, not even to his superiors during the investigation in which he was clearly exonerated. He never spoke of it at all until the day I graduated from the Academy and became, along with all the members of my graduating class, a full adult and a certified seer. After the graduation dinner and the speeches by The Honorable Bethesda Melliors and the Right Reverend Bertrand Cole we had returned to my aunt’s small house on Saint Catherine Street. It was late, but Aunt Seena offered one more glass of champagne in celebration. Both Papa and I declined, and my aunt seemed relieved to go upstairs to bed. Though he was clearly tired, Papa sat with me in front of the empty grate and stared into the black place where a fire would have burned on a cooler evening. Still, he said nothing until some minutes had passed, until there were no footsteps above, until I had recovered myself in the still shadows thrown by the single lamp on the table between us. “I wish I could save you all from this, the way I saved you from that bully boy when you were just a little girl. You could hardly walk, and he pushed you down in the sand when we went on holiday. Do you remember, Demaris? And I scooped you up and gave him what for, and you were safe. I wish I could do that now, because under all those fine words and silk tophats, I still know you’re afraid. They’re all afraid, too, and all the fancy crystal and imported wine doesn’t hide it. Your Auntie Seena, I knew from before she left home that she was frightened and bucking up brave, just like you are now. And I wish I could help you and take it all away. I wish I could, because I see it coming down, like that time that I killed Jack

Art by Frank Wu Morning.” “And worse yet, it had to be your Papa with gas lights and she had a hat and parasol “They said you did nothing wrong, on that train, who wanted me to marry and to match every one of her fashionable outfits. Papa,” I said gently. “You didn’t kill him, you stay with your Mama and not run off, not even Even now, when I may have hopes to become tried to help.” if it was to the Academy.” advisor to kings and parliaments, I know that I had not thought of Jack Morning Aunt Seena had told me calmly while what she has done is still something I have yet since I was fourteen. He was buried in the we drank lemonade in her tiny garden and to achieve. back of memory, along with a favorite doll that watched the dragonflies dart among the last of “Papa, Aunt Seena told me. She told me had been in the bottom drawer of my aunt’s the roses. The town of our birth seemed very that you were Jack Morning’s friend and no one dresser since my third year at the Academy, far away, an intimation of a distant childhood could have done more.” when I deemed myself too old for dolls. that I remembered more from the telling than My father nodded. “What I tried to do Everyone in town knew that Jack from the living. doesn’t matter. It’s that there was nothing at all Morning was troubled. When he drank he was “But if you were in love with him, why that I could do, and the knowing of it, is what morbid and when he was sober he was bitter didn’t you marry him?” I asked. I was fourteen haunts me. I still see him standing there, dead as root tea and looked too deep and knew too and very romantic, and my aunt seemed terribly drunk and standing still as if he was deaf as a much. His words were sometimes vicious but silly. post while we blew the whistle again and again. he had never struck another creature until the She shook her head and smoothed her I pulled the brake as soon as he stepped onto iron horse had run him down. Now that my pale shell-pink skirt. “I loved him, but I couldn’t the track, but even then I knew it was hopeless. aunt told me part of the story I think only that help him. He had failed at the Academy and There’s only so much can be done with that he must have been more disappointed than was sent down. I never knew why and I never much iron moving at speed. It takes a long time most. held him the less for it, but he envied me my and a good ways for a train to stop, and we Aunt Seena told me about it when I own certificate and my career. Which has been were fully loaded on the North Kyosa run. And was fourteen. “He was a local boy who went only moderate, but at least was something that Jack Morning was deaf and drunk and if I could off to the Academy and made good. He fancied I did for myself.” have jumped down from the cab and pushed himself in love with me. Perhaps he really was She stood up and turned away from him off I’d have done it. in love. I certainly thought I was in love with me. All I could see was her stiff back and her “I still see him there, standing on the him, but he never understood that. hands as she twisted her handkerchief. “He track. The worst of it is the knowing that there “Some blamed me for his drinking. It was smart and talented and could do things is only one way this will end, there is only took me many years to understand that only he other than his gift, and if he’d done any of them one thing possible. At night I dream him, with was to blame for his bitter disappointment. He then he wouldn’t have been so bitter and so twenty cars of freight pushing us from behind, is not the first suitor to be rejected, and there angry at me. At the end, he hated me as much twenty cars of freight that won’t slow down in were many in town who would have been as he loved me, and he hated my very modest time. very happy to have him. And no one would success most of all.” “And worse than that is that even say anything at all, had he not been drunk and At fourteen I did not think that Aunt now, even in the dream, even when I know it’s unable to move when the train came around. Seena had only modest success. She was one thirteen years past and nothing can change the Every man there said that it was like he was of the most popular seers with the solicitors, look in his eyes when he turned and saw our stone deaf, that he didn’t even turn when they checking the intentions of the dead on their locomotive screaming to brake against twenty blew the whistle. wills and legacies. She owned a house in town cars of loaded freight, even then I hope. I pray that this time he’ll turn around a little sooner, side you got your gifts. Your Aunt Seena them dashed one by one. My two brothers did that he’ll jump off the track. Every time I see believes that, I’m sure, and so I always thought well enough at school and Aunt Seena offered the outline of those trees on the dark blue sky that I was just the lucky guy who got to watch to place them in clerk apprenticeships. Then and I know that he’s going to be there in the you fly. You were always special, even when you Mama died and they both wanted to come dark out of nowhere, every single time, I hope were real little, and you look like your Mama. home and live with us, and both joined Papa on that this time it’s going to be different. Here you are all a lady now, in fine fancy the railroad. “It never is, and I know it never will clothes and talk like you got a title. But I’d For me it was different. I was his be. And I can’t honestly say which one is the have you in calico and working in a mill rather favorite, and my brothers petted and spoiled worse, the knowing that it’s coming and nothing than watching the iron horse run the old drunk me. All three of them agreed that I was meant can change it, or hoping that somehow the down, just like me. for Better Things, to leave our town and be a future isn’t inevitable.” “Maybe I should have left when Seena lady. Make a brilliant marriage, maybe, because My face was wet when he finished told me you were for the Academy. Maybe we my mother could have and did not. talking. In the dark I hoped he couldn’t see. should have emigrated like I thought to do back Going to the Academy might not have How had he known, just what it was like all before you was born. But I didn’t know, that been Papa’s first wish, but it certainly qualified the time for me? My papa, who hadn’t gone doesn’t matter. It’s our duty to protect you and as Better. I would be educated as a lady, and to a fine school or university, who worked for I’m afraid I did you wrong.” I would never be hungry or cold or worried the railroad all his life and mostly left me to I reached over and grabbed his hand, about the rent. I would be independent, my aunt, he knew the truth of it in the way the but suddenly I was sobbing in his lap the way mistress of myself, and in such circumstances as others in my class didn’t. I had when he told me that Mama had died. he and my brothers could only envy. Sometimes, just sometimes, I can see The way I had held on to him and cried when “It’s only school, poppet,” he said. the future. And it is always like being on my my aunt announced the good news that I was “You’ll be home for holidays and all summer papa’s train with the old drunk on the track. accepted at the Academy. There had never long, and you’ll learn a better life there, you will. What I see will happen, and I am powerless to been any question but that they would. And you’re better off than most. Your Aunt prevent it. Aunt Seena had been there when Seena will be there, her house is not three Some other person who cannot see Mama died, and she knew that I had seen it blocks away, and I’m sure they’ll let you go have the future can prevent the event. But I, who long ago. She said that she knew from the Sunday chocolate in her parlor.” can see, cannot act. It is part of the curse that questions I asked and from the way I looked— So, with my gift of sometimes seeing a made me a true seer instead of a simple seer not surprised but frozen with passing from little of what will be, I arrived at the Academy in like my aunt. between the worlds. So I had learned it was. I the charge of my aunt and in possession of one “But you stayed with the railroad, Papa,” had seen it before elsewhere, and upon seeing doll, two uniform dresses, a copy book and pen, I reminded him of a thing that needed no it again in this world I had been stricken with a a warm winter coat and hair ribbons. The girls reminding. Tomorrow he would go back to the kind of terror that is the curse of my kind. in my dorm had envied me, the boys in our fifth Kyosa run, as he had every Monday since he Perhaps Aunt Seena had talked to my year had whispered behind my back. turned twenty. father about it after the funeral, told him that Now I am a true seer and my gift, above “It’s what I do, poppet. It’s who I am. I was a true seer. He had known it already, or all, is a curse. Something happens to make a And I am afraid you are more like me than I suspected. And, in truth, I think then he was very few of us true seers, something rare, for wanted. I thought it was from your Mama’s pleased. He had ambitions for all of us, all of it is uncommon for a child to incur enough hatred in one with the gift of true words to up, straightened my sleeves and smoothed my He had known I was there. In the big utter the curse that creates us. Ordinary seers skirt. Then I went upstairs to the darkness to futures, in the wars and the markets, we are like my Aunt Seena can see only the past, but dream. And I dreamed the dream of the Sybil. not seen. The participants have too much to those like me can sometimes see a glimpse of There are signs and passwords to the watch as they try to survive and so we are the future as well. places of power. Each gift is a key to those shadows in the smoke and no more. But for We are very rare. Often there is only worlds, and as we unfold them we are able a single person alone, drunk and unhappy and one true seer in a generation and sometimes to move freely about in places where the afraid, visited again and again over the years by none at all. I was something valuable and geometry does not match this physical place. the same seer, they are sometimes aware. singular, something to be treated carefully. I go to a place where there is no time, where Jack Morning was more than aware. I Still, once the gift is recognized and one everything exists in the now. And so the future knew it when I went to watch when I was is accepted into the Academy, one is expected and the past happen all at once, together. fourteen. I had just gained a small portion of to follow the full course of study and cultivate There are dark places in my dreamwalk world, the control to decide on the precise hour and civilized behavior. A seer might come from futurepasts that are shrouded from my vision. detail, so that I could get close enough to try common stock, but should always practice Others are clothed in chaos, their patterns not to listen to his thoughts and watch his churning the manners of royalty and the speech of the yet emerged. mind. It was an exercise, no more, but as I educated. The Academy certainly requires I cannot change the future that I see. went about the practice and found his thread in rigorous classes in all the gifts and their use. Like my father, I am riding the iron horse, the great tangle of the now, I felt his awareness Many graduate like my aunt, who can use her weighted down with twenty cars of freight. fasten on and recognize me. talent to help untangle problems like bequests I did not need the ritual, the counter- “They’re taking her,” he mumbled as and intentions. Some few of us may be retained check, the official robes and dreaming room, he staggered out the front gate of his rooming by the rich and the powerful, and some of us the drugs and words, to see something for house. “They’re taking her, I’m telling you, you have gone to acquire political power of our myself. I was born with the key and I could go and your kind. Where do you get to decide?” own. there as easily in my aunt’s attic, surrounded He had looked straight at me as if he not only Right then I could not think of by her apple-blossom wallpaper and her apple- knew I was there, but could see me clearly in graduation and power, of being all grown up green coverlet. I could go there and see Jack the dark beyond. and ready for the world. I wanted to stay with Morning die, as I had ever since I had heard the I shrank back into the starlight, beyond Papa forever, safe in his lap, in his world. While grown-ups whisper and look askance. the trees, fading into the tangle of the worlds I knew I should cry for my father, and for Jack I had seen the accident when I was six, as I tried to observe where he went. But he Morning, I could cry only for myself. when I had first heard. I could not testify at shook his head and muttered again, and pointed Then my father smiled. “Now, off to the railroad hearing, and there never was any to me up in the trees. “Your kind, all your kind. bed with both of us. It’s been a long day, and question but that my father and his crew had All of you are the death of me. All of you are.” too much excitement. I shouldn’t have told tried to slow down the train, had blown the He walked past the edge of the road, you about the accident, poppet. I’m sorry now. whistle to warn him off the tracks. Sometimes down the track towards the river, and then he Now let’s both go to bed and tomorrow will I wondered if Jack Morning had wanted to die turned and cut across the field in the direction be bright and clear and we’ll have breakfast and that night, for I had seen the hours before as he of the station yard. I knew the path well, knew forget the dark thoughts.” had consumed cheap gin in his room and then that it would smell of old hay and manure this I nodded against his shoulder and got staggered out into the dark. time of year, knew the dip near the big rock. I had run that shortcut many times when my Morning had never noticed us for good or for thing, to follow it whichever way to discover Papa was expected home, hoping to catch him ill. Mostly he wandered in his own world, it what the questioner wants to know, and then all to myself. seemed; though on very rare occasions he told to bring it back in memory. There are gates Jack Morning knew that path, too. He stories of studying in Primabella and climbing and passages between that world and this didn’t miss dip, swerved around the broken Mount Tihanouk. All made up, we knew. As that confuse and fragment the information plough the Rollins boys had stolen and left to children we knew a great deal about making gained, so it cannot be brought away. rust, headed straight to the break in the fencing up stories and so we respected Mr. Morning’s This time I kept the focus and went where we children hadn’t wanted to walk attempts to entertain although we were quite back further, following the thread that was around to the front of the yard. It was a very sure that he couldn’t have done any of the Jack Morning to an earlier point than I had small break, too small for a grown man. He things he had claimed. entered when I was fourteen, before he tried to get through, the pulled the fence with Most of my training is not in the getting had left the house that night, before he had his hands and felt down below to the hole the there, for that is easy. It is to find a particular started on the gin. It was earlier than the Williams dog had dug time I had known, to accompany us the where the light was summer before. deep yellow and the I wondered shadows long. why he hated us. Nor had “Our kind.” All I I ever been in his could think of were room before. It was the children of the surprising, tidy and town, who had comfortably appointed. mostly ignored the The bed was made up solitary man. We with crisp white sheets had never hated him, and blue counterpane. had never chosen There were two books him as a target for on the round table our cruelty. That we under the window, and saved for those adults a picture of a woman like Miss Tillary, who in a frame. And Jack threatened us with Morning was sitting the police every time in front of the picture we ran down the drinking gin and lane past her house crooning softly. and into the fringe of “You don’t woods at the edge of have to go. No, you the field. She threw can say no. You can say stones at us, too. yes to me, like I asked But Mr. you all these years. I asked you and I asked you and figured you’re And yet the dreaming was not finished. was beyond the Gates and into the Unseen, for young yet and you don’t know your mind. I was awake, but the shadow always lingered there was power and truth in his words. “Why don’t you stay here with me, and beckoned, though I had some fearsome He could not hear the whistle, did not don’t go back there? You don’t need to go, idea that I already knew. The memory of those move because with all his being he was cursing I know you don’t want to. No, you think it’s other times was buried in the gates of the me into a true seer. your duty, but I know you, Seena. I know you Worlds, in the fear and denial of a young girl. The sun that woke me was bright, as since you were a little girl and you don’t belong I wanted to make it stop, just stop, like Papa Papa predicted, and the smell of bacon and with them in that stone place. You belong with on the train whose fate was always to watch coffee wafted up the stairs. The world was me.” helpless while the great wheels sprayed blood beautiful and safe and calm. When I came He started to sob and drink more and bone on the ties. downstairs Papa had gone; I had waited to hear deeply. I came awake with tears on my face Knowing, and knowingly helpless, still I the door close behind him. I could not face and a heaviness in my heart. I brought it back had to try anyway. I shifted my view. Instead him with what I had brought back from the and remembered so clearly that I knew I had of watching from the train I went to face Jack place of shadow, for I could not bear to see his seen it before but the conscious record had Morning. courage and his matter-of-fact goodwill as he faded in the passage. I had been too young, and What did I intend there to do? To warn left for the railyard. I had not been able to bring it back, or face the him? To force him from the fabric of time and Now it was I who could never tell him knowing. into being somewhere else? about the death of Jack Morning. Papa had The he picked up the picture in the I do not know, nor do I know what I done all he could to save Jack, and would have frame and threw it at the fireplace, where the would have done had he not looked at me in done more. I, I had been the vehicle that had glass shattered on the hearth. the eye, and with such hatred that even beyond killed him. “Damn you, Seena. You think you’re too time I froze. There was no mistaking his intent. “No, Damaris, you were not,” my aunt good for me, with your house in town and your For all he was drunk, his gaze was clear and Seena said as she served eggs and toast onto regular clients and your fancy silk dresses. With steady and his words were precise. my plate over my protests. I blinked because your certificate. Do you know why I never “I curse you,” he intoned as well as I had not told her what I had seen, what I had graduated and became one of you, all high and any gifted with the true words. “I curse you dreamed, what I had learned. mighty? Because I told the truth, I talked back to know the future and to tell it, that you will “You went only to witness, to to Old Holderman when he was in one of his watch it but cannot change anything you see. I understand. It was he that cursed you.” moods, because I stood up for us. For those curse you to all the ends of time, that you will “How do you know?” I asked. “I have of us from the provinces who weren’t from be lost in forever.” said nothing; I am not even sure what happened society families and had to work for a living. I It was a formula, and one that I knew. myself.” told him what I thought and then I was dragged It was the cursing of a true seer, for while our My aunt smiled softly. “And this is my into the headmaster’s office and dismissed. gift is valued, it is not an easy gift to bear. He gift. You know what it is that I can do. You have Not because my gift wasn’t strong, not because cursed me as the train came behind him, it’s not yet understood what it is that I can learn in I wasn’t smart or disciplined. I know what you squealing scream piercing all but Jack Morning’s the doing of it.” all said about me after I left; I’m sure of it.” mind. For all his mind and his heart were in She drank her tea and crumbled a crust Then he started drinking, sitting on his his curse, and he had no thought for any other of toast on her plate, looking at the leavings as one chair and finishing most of the bottle of gin. thing. As much as anyone in the Ritual Arts, he if they were tealeaves in a gypsy’s cup at the fair. “And he cursed you,” she said, her eyes never rising from the porcelain. “He made you a true seer, and he never knew what he did.” I nearly dropped my teacup. “What do you mean, he never knew what he did?” My aunt smiled softly and shook her head. “You cannot see it, but I can,” she said. “You look so much like your mother. And your mother and I looked very much alike. Those who see true seers, I think, see only shadows, and in the shadow he could mistake you for me. He never meant to curse you, Demaris. He meant to curse me.” All time is now, all moments in the future and the past exist together, their threads invariably looped. And I, I was caught in the skein. I wanted to withdraw from the bright dining room, to retire to my bed and pull down the shades and never leave. Aunt Seena rose briskly from the table. “Now come, it is nearly time for us to leave.” “I don’t want to go,” I told her. She shook her head briskly. “Your father left this morning on the Kyosa run.”