The darkness was complete. Seeing was a non-sense, a black velvet hole full of nothing. In the air a tang, a smart of coal-smoke with no breeze to clear it. My hands stretch in front of me, feeling only the warm graphite of the summer night. My ears stretch too, hearing nothing beyond the sound of black breaths drawn and the thrum of blood in the arteries of the neck.
If it hadn't been for the coal-smoke, I wouldn't have known the train had passed. I felt with my toe but the ground was clear of rail or sleepers. The line was not far, I knew that. It was somewhere within a few paces of the beginning. And yes it was a beginning, a mature birth, a springing alive and adult into a strange black world where there was no light, perhaps never had been. I did remember light and trains and coal-smoke, the war that had put so much urgency into every youthful courtship and hung black curtains at every window. I have knowledge aplenty, but no remembrance.
At this moment, the full span of my memories is a record of the few past minutes. First on the list: a spinal jar, the jar you get from your heel when straight legged you drop down an unexpected step; then more steps, but I was ready for them, after that nothing but the night, if this darkness was the night. I suppose, thinking back, the steps must have led me down from the platform. I'm guessing, but railway-lines seem likely to have halts and, assuming I'm still in a country I know, even the most rural halts have platforms.
You'd think it was a shock, suddenly finding yourself alone in the dark. It would be with memories, proper memories, personal ones, emotional ones. Without them it’s merely curious. How strange to be me, here I am, but where is here? The ground is under my feet. It is flat and smooth, like a tarmac road. I bend to touch it and it feels like a road. My fingertips smell of tar and rubber, so yes, I reckon it is a road. I know about trains, that they run on rails, that the rails have sleepers and coarse ballast between them, and - I remember doing it - bits of coal for the kids to collect. When I touch the sleepers my fingers will smell of creosote. When I touch the rails my fingers will taste of iron.
The railway crosses the road, at least it did when I was a child. On the railway, run the trains. I remember; there will be only one train tonight. The smell of coal-smoke means it's passed and gone, along with my memories. If trains run on lines, what runs on roads? That I don't remember.
I am walking, but I haven't found the edge of the road. What will it be like when I do? Will there be kerbstones? Am I in town? The sounds, of which I am the only present source, suggest not. There should be sounds in the countryside, and more in the town, but there are none here.
I change direction. The edge of the road must be attainable. In two directions there will be no edge to the road, only the far distant ends, that's logical. Every other direction must eventually reach the verge - a new scent has slipped in under the coal-smoke, a green smell, a smell of greenery. I am confident now, that when I reach it, it will be a verge. The tarmac begins to roughen, fall away, the green-smell gets stronger, as if it's preparing me for the discovery.
I can no longer discern the coal-smoke, it has become a memory. The warm darkness has gained a dry dustiness, the air a scent of hawthorn. The underlying green-smell is overpowering; the verge has been mown. I am elated. I have achieved the first target of my brief new life. Again I touch the ground. Yes, the verge is mown, I mowed the verge. Is that just speculation or a memory from my other life, the one that had light in it. No, I'm sure it was me that mowed the verge. I s'pose that makes me a verger. Now there's another milestone; I've cracked a little joke.
I'm cheering up, now. In a few moments my life record will be so long and complicated, I shall probably start forgetting things. If there was any light I could write them down. That would be nice, both having light and writing things down.
I do have pencil and paper. I can feel them in my pockets. A stub of pencil in my shirt pocket and crumpled paper in my trousers. I stumble. It's a mistake to walk in the dark without holding your hands out in front. You might run into things. Of course it wouldn't have saved me the stumble. That was my old friend, the verge.
Ambition strikes. I shall find the other verge. I even have a reason. It would be nice to know if I'd mown that one as well.
I can guess where it is, I have some wits about me. With my left foot I kick out at the familiar verge. There it is, just where I expected it. I turn my back on it, kick back with my heels a couple of times, to make sure it is directly behind me, then I stride confidently forward.
Eight good paces brings me to a new experience. It was a good job I had my hands out in front. This verge is vertical, rough and regular. It is made up of grooves and rectangles. I taste my fingertips. They are gritty.
A wall, that's what it is, a brick wall. Well I didn't mow that, and that's for sure. Things to remember are coming thick and fast. Perhaps I can write them down, even in the dark. I get out the paper. It is crumpled, but strangely crisp between the crumples. I am beginning to think it isn't just paper, anyway it smells. It smells of...? Yes money. I have money, that's reassuring. Could I buy some light with the money? That would be good, but who do you buy light from?
The train, the one that took my memories, must also have taken the light. I'm sorting this out rather well, I think. There's only one thing left to do, find the railway. Two choices, along the road or back along the road, unless it's behind the wall. I am undecided. Choices can be made by tossing money in the air. I do so. Nothing happens, except I no longer have any money. In disgust I throw away the pencil as well.
“Ting,” there is a sound, and it's not part of me or mine.
Which way did the pencil go? I am facing along the road, I know that because, even though I can't see it, I can sense the nearness of the wall on my right. The pencil must have landed somewhere in front of me. I set off. “Ting” means metal. Metal means railway lines. I speed up, hands out in front of me.
“Ting” means metal, so does “Ouch!” Ouch means a road-sign. It has to be a road-sign, lamp-posts provide light, and there's none of that around here.
My arms of course, went either side. I clasp it. Taste the metal running down my lip. Liquid road-signs? Not the way I remember them. Then I realise why I'm in pain. That's not metal, it's blood. Now I'm glad I threw away the paper and pencil; this is something I don't want to write down for remembrance. A broken lip is not a railway.
A new concept creeps into my mind. I've had Confusion. I've had Ambition. I've had Literary Leanings and I've even had Pain. The new one's Doubt. Do I really need to find the railway. I know the train's gone. I'm too late to catch it, if that's what I wanted, in that other life of mine.
Red! That was it, the last light was red. It was the light that the train took away from me. A victory; I have stolen back a memory from those that the train took away.
It wasn't much, that little red light. How should such a light illuminate the world? Were my other memories as insignificant? I think not. After all, it took a whole train to carry them away.
Coal-smoke! Away from the verge, it still lingers in the air. It is the only leavening to the graphite night, without it you would be able to grab the heavy night in handfuls and chuck it about. What sound, I wonder, does darkness make when it hits a railway line? “Ting?” I don't think so. Ting means metal, metal means road-signs, but what do road-signs mean. “Sharp Bend,” “Junction,” “Beware of road-signs in the dark?” Maybe this one warns of thieving trains.
I continue hopefully. This time my hands are fingers-spread and close together. The next object gets me in the stomach. And what's more it smells. I have discovered garbage and the rolling rattling container in which it festers.
“It must be Tuesday,” says some distant part of my brain. A peculiar thought, but it must mean something. Perhaps that's what the road-sign says, “Welcome to Tuesday” or “Tuesday welcomes careful vergers.” At least I know where I am. Strange place Tuesday, a place with no light and no sound.
No sound. No I'm wrong, there are sounds. Buzzings and chirpings, very tiny, very distant. The opposite verge is calling to me, I go. Grass, new mown, is better than brick-walls, bloody road-signs and garbage underfoot.
Halfway across the road, I stare down. There is a glimmer of paleness. A long narrow rectangle of something other than total blackness. Dawn is rising, but why should it do so through the road? Above me another glimmer, pale and broad. It is the sky. I am amazed that it's not red, and then I'm not. The train stole all the red light. Suddenly, I'm back in my old world. There are the railway lines, two thin silver reflections. But beyond that there's something else, a bright spark, something to focus my mind. It lies on the ground between the rails; can it be the pencil? Never! Pencils rarely sparkle.
I run to the railway crossing. Now I remember, I am billeted with the crossing keeper, I mow his verges, put out his garbage, help with the gates when his back is bad. By the crossing is the country halt. I run towards it.
There, at the top of five grey-brick steps is the platform, scene of passion, of farewell. I mount the steps, two at a time, and look down into a chasm of despair. Between the rails, a diamond ring winks back at the dawn. A grounded star, coruscating, orbiting my mind. It is sad and lost, this tiny, fallen star. I stoop, take hold of the platform’s edge and drop onto the track. Among the ballast and the jewelled jet of scattered coal, the ring lies cold and bright, mourning for what might have been.
I bend to pick it up, stare into its dazzling facets. The last veil of forgetfulness spins away from me. Now I know why the world fell out of my mind. It was not the light of the world or my memory that was stolen by the train, but a bright red-haired, hot-tempered, ring-throwing woman.
Copyright The Mundesley Hermit ©1997 and ©2007. All Rights Reserved.
