The Blackberry Walk

Chapter 3 The conductor began to laugh. A cackling laugh, the kind of laugh which says, “I know something you don’t.” It was really rather irritating. Then in his uncanny accent he proceeded, “Erm, I’m not sure how much I’m at liberty to say, sir. For now know that I am an employee of EMR, and that you’re in safe hands: we mean you no harm, I mean to say.” He looked a little too pleased with his smarmy response, so I pressed the point, “Not at liberty to say? Myself and the other passengers have essentially been kidnapped, taken on a train we didn’t board, into... outer space? What’s the meaning of this!” Then conductor’s face - or as much of his face as I could make out - lost its past jollity, and stiffened. “Other passengers?” his replied quizzically with an eyebrow raised, after which he dashed like a black blur so fast my eyes couldn’t register he had gone, and he was standing beside the lady in red. I caught up to him jogging-not-jogging down the train. “This lady here,” he continued, “is she.. here?” “I tried shaking here earlier to wake her up, she’s a live though, I checked her...”, my countenance sharpened coming to a conclusion as to what could’ve be meant, “What have you done with her?!” The conductor put his hands up in front of him and waved away the accusations, “No no no, this lady is perfectly safe. It’s just that she’s in torpor. Everyone else on this train is in a kind of torpor, except you. And I have guaranteed you’ll be perfectly safe on your journey, it’s EMR policy!” At this he puffed his chest, and badge seemed to beam with light against his shadowy form. I apologised for my implicit accusation. And then a hollowness opened up inside of me. From the window, I could hardly see the Earth now, and it was fast becoming a blue LED sticking through the jet-black tablecloth of the cosmos. And here, on this train, was just me. Just me, and this... being? He wasn’t a human in the biological sense, though he seemed properly proportioned like a man. And he did appear to have ‘person-hood’. He spoke like a person, had the sensibilities of a person, follies like pride and anger, and even had an accent. To have an accent you must be around others surely? I began to stare at him a little longer. In him I saw the only other person here so far from Earth, the only person who knows what’s going on. It began to sink into me deeper the severity of the situation; and how much I must now rely on this strange conductor, who is allegedly from East Midlands Railway. After years of commuting, my trust for EMR is only skin deep. “Me?” The conductor had caught me staring at him, and preempted a question I was too awkward to ask. The conductor chuckled, but it was a mournful chuckle. There was pain in his voice. “I would really rather not talk about it, sir... All I will say is, for now at least, that I was human.” In the long pause which followed, only the clinks of the rails, clink clank, clink clank was heard, as we passed a black-satin cosmos dotted with stars. All of a sudden the conductor, startled by seemingly nothing, reached into his pocket and found a golden pocket watch. And, inspecting the time, his flame-like shadows which after the past conversation had died down to a dwindling flame, raged back up to a roaring fire, as if the gas knob of his shadows had been turned up again. “Sorry, one moment,” the conductor said. And moving somehow faster than he previously had, vanished. Then over the tannoy the following was heard: “We are now approaching The Moon in the next few moments. Please make sure you keep any belongings with you at all times. Thank you.” Then just as suddenly as he disappeared, the conductor returned. “Ah sorry about that sir, I just had to go and make the announcement. Where were we.” His face darkened and his fires dwindled for just a moment, before they jolted back and returned. “Ah yes, that was it, we’re arriving at The Moon. Will you be alighting here, sir?” I wasn’t sure how to reply to this other than, “Of course not, how would I alight at the moon? I haven’t got any equipment, no space suit, no oxygen, nothing. It’s a vacuum out there, you said so yourself.” Again my question received the response of that same irritating cackle. I glared at him, and, mildly startled, he stopped. “Why sir, there is no air in space, but there is plenty of air on the moon. The moon is perfectly safe.” “But, but what about the Astronauts in all their kit? What about that video of the experiment dropping a hammer and a feather together, and them falling at the same time? All the footage we have shows there is no air to speak of.” Again, cackling laughter, this time it seemed a little more uncontrollable. Still wincing from his convulsions, he replied, “Sir, sir, you don’t believe those silly videos are real, do you?” Great. Now the only other soul on this train has revealed himself to be a loon. “Sir, look with your eyes out the window.” The silver surface of the moon was coming into view. “Look, really look sir. Look with your own eyes, not with the eye of another man’s camera. Look.” What I saw was not the moon I had come to know from the telly. What I saw was a shimmering surface, a flat surface, a surface covered in small flowers? A surface with milky-white brooks? A waterwheel? Houses? I could hardly believe my eyes. “Sir, now you see it with your own eyes, do you believe?” In shock and awe, I stared on as we came into the station. ‘The Moon’ the sign read, with the national rail symbol beside it. Then, the train came to a halt, and my ears were relieved of that tinny sound of the rails. The doors of the train then opened, and there was a sudden gust as air left the train. Terrified and unbelieving in the conductor, I ducked my head into my lap, my hands clasped over my mouth, panting for breath as if the air cupped in my hands was the last air I would ever have. Then the fear drained out of me, and I realised I really could breath. I glanced up to look out the window and view the alien landscape, before standing up to really take stock of the vast view. Powered on by faith in the conductor’s assessment, I strode out of the car and alighted onto the cold stone surface of the platform. A voice from behind me spoke. “We’ll be stopping here for a few hours. Since you’re our only passenger sir, take some time to explore, the train can wait around for a while if need be.” “Typical EMR timetabling”, I thought to myself. Chapter 4 The moon was not as I expected. The moon I found, when placed upon the scale from scientific to mythic, would be towards the centre, edging towards scientific. Alas, there was no cheese to speak of. The ground was solid rock, rock so compacted, flat and solid, it felt like walking upon paving stones. The air was thinner than ours on Earth, like the air you breathe at high altitudes, but air nonetheless. Gravity also was thinner than the Earth’s, but not as springy and boingy as NASA had made out. Sure, you could leap twice as far as you could usually, but there wasn’t quite the same floaty-ness that one would expect. Leaping so far from unsprung, stone ground was entertaining however, and this kept me occupied for some time, leaping back and forth. I then wondered how fast I could traverse the landscape leaping from knoll to knoll. It felt effortless. In my leaping, I came across a more substantial hill, up which I leaped too and fro, zig-zagging a path up to the top of the hill as if I were in Minecraft. What I saw from the top was stunning. It wasn’t the vast expanse of reflective rock, nor the vast fields of little purple flowers which were luminescent. No. however beautiful these were, they weren’t the proximate cause of my being stunned. No, the cause of my stunning was the village of small dancing girls below the mountain. These girls, all roughly seven to eleven years of age had faces as white as plaster, and braided hair of silver thread. Each wore very simple white woolen dresses without pleat nor petticoat, and each danced and played upon what looked to be their village green (village silver?). Afraid of disrupting the scene, and as one chronically averse to pursuing curiosity knowing how often it leads to danger from the movies, I opted to turn back, and to let these girls continue playing in peace and harmony. But just as I turned, behind me stood the conductor. “Go on sir, they’re friendly. Don’t be a coward.” At once, I turned back around, and tried to control my breathing after this jump-scare. But he was right: when next would I see something so fantastical? I steeled myself to go down and greet them. Then, checking over my shoulder to ensure the conductor had left, I gingerly descended the hill. Closer up, I could see these girls more clearly. There were no adults about, and what looked to be from a distance substantial houses, were in fact many smaller cobblestone dwellings. Some of the girls danced around a maypole, others skipped rope, and a few I noticed were playing tricks with a cat’s cradle. The chorus of the maypole dancers melded with the shrieks of joy from the other girls heard only on a school playground; to some this may sound like a cacophony, a great pain to the ears, but I found it to be rather beautiful. One girl stood beside a particularly milky looking pond just in front of the village silver and was chucking ever larger rocks into the water to watch them splash. For a little girl, the size of these rocks she was carrying were impressive, though this was likely the aid of the weakened gravity. The girl looked up, her mouth hanging open, though not perturbed, and pointed at me. Then, turning to the girls playing, she hollered some words in a tongue I didn’t recognise, and pointed at me again. In moments, the mass of girls ran towards me, laughing. Dozens and dozens came, and more came still from the little houses.There seemed to be no end of these girls. It didn’t take long before the swell of pale faced giggling little girls swarmed around me, all of them standing around me pressing against me and against one another, almost carrying me away. The fondness for these children and their village fete had left me, as I was being carried away by the crowd to somewhere I knew not. I looked back over my shoulder, but the conductor was nowhere to be seen.