On the Mystery Train

flash fiction

The black steam engine chugged through the station: its smoke curled and settled on the small Kansas town. There were no waiting passengers and luggage on the platform. The station was dark and cold.

A few of the lighter sleepers woke as they heard the cry of the train. They grumbled and went back to sleep.

There were no more trains and no more steam engines running through this town. The last train they had seen had been in the 1980s, pulling the last load and dropping off the passengers. All the food, clothes, and essentials came by trucks. There were no more trains.

The chugging train vanished.

Cathy Boone boarded the train. Her family had gotten on her last nerve. She wanted to disappear and leave her life behind. She had spent that life as a daughter, mother and wife.

After the accident, when her husband went into a coma, it had been almost too much. The doctors convinced her to pull the plug, and when he died, her life ended. She was nothing without him.

Her ungrateful children wanted to sell her house and put her into a nursing home. She had seen what happened to old folks who were put in nursing homes. The places smelled and the rooms were small. The nurses had to care for far

too many patients. So many of them would sit in dirty clothes for hours, waiting for help. Those places were mind and body killers. She wanted something more. She wanted dignity.

So when the train pulled up to the tracks at the back of her house, she grabbed her purse, a flashlight, and some candy bars. An old man at the top of the folding stairs, helped her up and showed her to her seat.

Then he pulled out his watch from his waistcoat and checked the time.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Ma’am, to your destination,” he answered.

“All Aboard!”

The train started down the tracks. The old man pulled a blanket from the overhead bin and wrapped it around her. She snuggled in and felt her eyelids dropped. Yes, her destination. She hoped it would be better than her last one. She fell asleep to the clickety-clack of the train.

***

The next morning her children found her cold body with smile on its face. Instead of wondering about her smile, they spent the rest of the day, arguing over her estate.

Not one of them noticed the slight smell of coal in the air.