Track Switch - Double Traction
by Celefin
I am in a Taxi on the Autobahn 661 and the weather is atrocious. Someone else is going to drive my train the rest of the way. Not sure I like it, but it is probably better that way.
Squeak plop. Squeak plop. Squeak plop.
The Mercedes’ windscreen wipers make Frankfurt’s distant skyline appear every few seconds before it gets obscured again by the rain and spray. Low hanging clouds are hiding the skyscrapers’ spires and upper floors.
Lightning high above lights up the clouds with a leaden yellow for a second. Distant thunder, almost drowned out by the engine and traffic noise.
Thankfully, the driver has given up on trying to get more than one-word answers out of me. Cannot deal with that right now. I have talked more than enough already.
Explaining everything to the police officer was much harder than I had imagined. Which is stupid, really. I have not done anything wrong, quite the opposite. I prevented a disaster. Well, not me. At least not just me. Did not tell her that though. Obviously.
It did not help that it took a minute to convince her that yes, the pony before her was a pony engineer working for a subsidiary of DB. And that I had indeed been driving the train all the way from Dijon.
I was even still wearing all my gear, but that did not appear to be enough.
Felt that I somehow needed to justify my presence and defend myself. As if it was me who was in any way responsible for this mess because I am not human. Not sure if she even saw it that way. Just a feeling. The way she looked at me and how her voice sounded.
Might just as well have been my imagination. I am afraid I am a mess.
Got a phone call from a colleague some twenty minutes after the almost-crash. He is a guy trained in emergency psychological aid, standard protocol for accidents involving a person.
Well, he would not have needed to. I did not run anyone over.
I did not mash that car and spread a father and his baby who had not made it out in time because the front door of that vehicle was stuck after that accident with the boom lowered on the car’s roof over a hundred metres of track bed and everything smelling of petrol and blood and the look in the man’s eyes and-
Stop! Stop. Take a deep breath. Maybe he did need to talk me through it after all.
We overtake a lorry, its tires whipping up dirty water from the black road surface. The spinning wheels at eye height are mesmerising for a few seconds. A brief shudder as we leave it behind and get hit by side wind it shielded us from. Rain lashing at the window.
I hope Trax is alright. She has no one to talk to.
I feel a headache coming on. Can she get stressed? She can definitely get annoyed, I felt that clearly enough. How did she even know? Did the rails feel wrong somehow? Does she sing to everything around her? Come to think of it, her song sounded different just before the madness began.
I wish I could ask her. Like, really ask her. Ask Trax like a real person.
Because she is real. Real. Really real. I guess I am going to have to remind myself of that many times over. She did not feel stressed. How do I know that? I just know. Does not make sense. She was concerned about me. I know that. When I put my head against her console, I knew.
What am I to her?
They will have to check her for damage, especially to the wheels. Unbalance caused by abrasion, that was a long way to slide on sanded rails. Can she feel that? Does that hurt or can she not feel things happening to her body?
Will she feel alone when she wakes up in the depot and I am gone?
I think of my cutiemark and it makes me splay back my ears. Does she even wake up when I am not there? Is there a Trax without me?
Does it matter?
“Are you okay?”
The driver’s hand on my shoulder jolts me out of my thoughts and the mild pain of the ill fitting seatbelt brings me back to reality. I blink a few times and drag my fetlocks down my face and muzzle. They come away damp. “No,” I say and look out the window again. “Sorry, not your fault,” I add after a pause.
“It’s alright.” He gives a sad little chuckle. “It’s just that I’ve never had a pony passenger before and want to ask you stuff, but I guess you get that a lot. Like, a whole lot.” He taps his lower lip with an index finger. “Hm. At least now I know how alien pony fur feels like,” he says with a wink.
Despite everything, a little smile finds its way onto my muzzle. Maybe I should humour him a bit. I will be alone with my thoughts again soon enough.
I take a deep breath and let it out again slowly. “Okay. Ask away,” I say and turn my head away from the window and the depressingly murky morning light. Seeing his honest grin makes me feel better. It does not happen often that I enjoy the ‘never met a pony before’ routine. I think today I will.
A little while later we cross the bridge over the Main river, the grey water below us does not look as if it is flowing. It is rippling and foamy. We leave the A661 just before it passes over the Frankfurt east freight terminal, my original destination, back when everything mostly made sense. I will be home in five minutes or so.
***
I should have let the driver drop me off at the bakery. A stocked pantry is a virtue, sadly not one I posses. You would think that I knew that, having lived most of my life in Equestria where there are no supermarkets.
The mere thought of going out again to buy something is exhausting. Maybe I do not have to. There is a can of baked beans in the cupboard, half a glass of pickled beetroot in the fridge and a packet of crisps past its sell by date on the floor beside my bed. I decide to call it a meal.
I must have been really hungry. Maybe the shaking was not from distress but mainly from low blood sugar. The thought makes me feel better. A small glass of scotch improves my mood even more.
I treasure my Scapa single malt whisky and I just realised that I do have something to celebrate. I may have nightmares for a while, but no-one was killed or hurt (or damaged, in Trax’ case). I will drink to that. And to my girl.
It is quiet around here in the late morning. Most of the other tenants are at work and we did not meet anyone when we arrived. That was nice. The driver was kind enough to follow me inside and also negotiate with the lock on the door to my flat.
Faced with the choice of bed or shower, bed wins hooves down. I look down at myself. Good thing I forgot to put clean sheets on it before I left, that would have been a waste. I close the curtains with my hook on a stick and smile in the resulting murky darkness.
Even resisted emptying that bottle.
***
My phone wakes me up. Where am I? Oh right. Dammit, where is my stylus? Where is my phone for that matter? I am lying on it. No wonder it is muffled but my belly is vibrating. Arrgh!
It takes some contortions, but I end up pressing my nose against the screen in the hope of either accepting the call or shutting off the infernal device. The screen blinds my poor eyes in the process.
“Yes?!” I would have liked to put more venom into those three letters, but I am too groggy.
The caller appears unimpressed. “Nightline?! Where are you? Are you okay? You’re in the news!”
...what?
“Hello? Are you there, Night?” A female voice.
Maybe i should say something. “Huh?”
“It’s me. Penny. Are you okay?”
Oh right, that female voice. “Hi, uh, yeah, I think so. Penny, give me a second to-”
“Okay!”
“-wake up.”
There is a small pause. “Oh. Sorry. Totally forgot. Are you at home?”
I shake my head to try and clear the mush from my brain. “Yeah, I’m in Frankfurt. And I’m fine. And my train is fine.”
“Who cares about your train, when-”
“Trax.”
“-you are- oh sorry, sorry. Okay.”
I have to smile at how her voice just changed. She means it. “It’s okay.”
“No it isn’t, but anyway. Do you need something for dinner and do you want to stay at my place tonight? I don’t have to work tomorrow, so I don’t mind staying up long.”
“Uh. I don’t know, maybe? Can I get back to you on that when my brain is up and running?”
“Great! Irek gave me your address, I’ll pick you up!”
“Uh, I-”
Click
“-have to shower first.”
I blink at my phone’s lock screen. I guess that is taken care of then, even if I did not get to have a say in it. Oh well. With a sigh, I roll onto my back and close my eyes.
Just five more minutes.